


a voice straight to god

by glitteration



Series: a voice straight to god [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby Griffin Tops Everyone, An Overabundance of Feelings, Canon-Typical Violence, Characters Arcs Expressed via Hair, F/M, Team Adult Fuck Yeah, The Secondary Characters are Calling the Shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:04:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7979368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes you can get away completely<br/>but the shells<br/>will tell about the howling<br/>and the loss.</p><p>- you came with shells, june jordan.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A post-culling Kabby AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. light bust through the beat-up shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby fail to deal with their shit and also have sex on the living room floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene from 1x7.

The halls are empty as she walks back to her quarters and Abby notes the lack of foot traffic with relief.

The world of Alpha is a small one, its centrality aside, and gossip travels as fast as any virus in a closed community. Thelonious is a smart man; he'd taken the pin in full session when he could have done it alone to make the lesson stick, and this is the second act of that same punishment. The neighbors will have inevitably heard about the outcome of the council's deliberation and the idea of facing up to their attempts at condolences makes her chest tighten. After Clarke's rejection, she's not sure she could bear up under close scrutiny.

At least Kane's apartment isn't close enough to make them neighbors. Her mouth twists, bitterly amused. It's the only bright light in all this; seeing him tonight just might be the thing that tips her over the edge into the sort of criminal activity even Thelonious can't pardon. 

They've been at odds for years, but never like this. Not even after they took Clarke away. 

The humiliation of the morning is too fresh for distance and casting the blame at his feet feels good, stoking her anger higher as she repeats to herself with each step forward: _Kane_. It was Kane. Kane who wanted her off the council, Kane who demanded three hundred and twenty lives. 

He's not the one who had to take care of the bodies and prepare them for a mass funeral. He doesn't know their faces or their families. He's the reason her more progressive motions stall out for lack of support and she can't force any real change. He's the source of everything, has been since long before he pushed for the warrants that took her family away. 

Knowing the kids are alive—that _Clarke_ is alive—sharpens that fury to a diamond edge and she repeats the litany of his sins again, the walk home passing in a blur.

There's someone at the door, and her pace falters in uncertainty and then dread once she's close enough to make out their face. Given the last two years, finding the person she most wants to avoid outside her door shouldn't be a surprise.

Lips peeling back into a mockery of a smile, Abby inclines her head. "Councillor Kane." He's slumped against the wall, jacket wrinkled in a way that's entirely unlike him.

"Dr. Griffin." Uncharitable, maybe, but she can't help reading triumph into the use of her medical title for the first time in years and it's another strike against him. Deliberately rude, she jostles him a little reaching for the keypad only to draw back again when the unmistakeable tang of sweat and liquor reaches her nose.

"You've been drinking."

He nods, agreeably. "I have, yes. Well-spotted."

Swallowing back a retort, Abby nods tersely and opens the door, only to be stopped by a hand on her collar, where the pin used to be.

"You think this is my fault."

His skin is hot, burning through the fabric of her shirt and for a moment she's struck by the sight of his pale hands against her shirt. They're graceful and long-fingered, more suited to gentler tasks than the ones he's lent them to.

The thought is disturbing in a way that defies explanation, and she wrenches away with her head held high, watching his face shutter at the violence of her rejection. "I'm not discussing this in the corridor." There's not much in her shoulder bag but Kane followed her in rather than leaving, so she manages to slam it down on the table near the couch with a crash so loud it might as well be filled with engine parts.

He flinches and she smiles meanly, pouring herself some water without offering him any. 

"You thought you'd be allowed to keep your seat."

"I understood the consequences of my actions." Of course I did is the real answer, but admitting even to herself that makes her feel like a guilty child.

"Do you?"

Abby's head jerks up, indignation written clearly across her features. "I'm sorry?"

"I said, 'do you'? Understand the consequences of your actions." He folds his arms across his chest, the same infuriatingly certain expression she's seen so many times across the council table back in place. "You lost your seat on the council, but anyone else would have lost their _life_." She can't help but flinch back, face whitening as his tone turns scolding. "And it's not just your life you're gambling with. Who would run medical if the vote had failed? You owe it to the people of this ship to take your responsibilities seriously, if you won't do it for your own sake."

The accusations cut uncomfortably close to her heart. It's not just leaving Jackson alone if she goes, it's leaving him alone as a doctor. Medical needs every capable hand available, and Jackson's not ready to oversee them all yet. 

"I was right!" The defense bursts from her lips. "The kids are alive, earth is survivable. Raven made it. If you had listened to me, we _all_ could have made it."

It's cruel to throw the culling in his face but his assessment of what she'd done digs under her skin like a shard of glass, too close to her own thoughts on the matter when she'd let herself remember Jackson's face that day in the airlock.

"But you didn't _know_ that." His anger rises to meet her own, voice gaining an edge. "What if you'd been wrong? You say you understand, but you don't. You do whatever you want, and to hell with the consequences. You're reckless, Abby."

"Sometimes doing what's _right_ ," she stresses the word right, nearly a growl, "is more important than the consequences." Venting her fury on him feels too good to stop no matter how unfair it may be, and she takes a step closer, then another, intimidating in a way her frame doesn't give her credit for. For the first time in a long time, no piece of her is tired. "And I'd rather be reckless than defeatist." 

"You're impossible. God _damnit_ , why won't you—" Breaking off, he snarls in frustration and surges forward, teeth clicking as he smashes their mouths together. 

His lips are chapped and he has more passion than skill, but between one shocked breath and the next she's kissing him back, straining up into the violent pressure and fisting her hand in his collar to help keep her balance, his pin cold against her fingers. 

It's good. It shouldn't be surprising, but it is. It's not that she had thought kissing Marcus would be unpleasant; she hadn't thought of it at all. He was just Marcus, who stood at the periphery of each childhood memory, receding from her life as the years went by until he was Jake's stern friend and her occasional opponent.

By the time his mouth eases off her own, she's breathing hard and somehow the wall is at her back. Jake's ring is pressed between them, digging into the skin over her breastbone, a firm reminder of the lines she's crossing. She should push him away.

"Marcus." 

She doesn't.

The wall is cool in the way that all of Alpha is cool; barely, and it doesn't take long for their body heat to make the difference in temperature between skin and metal negligible. Marcus' tongue slides against hers, his hands gripping her waist tight enough to bruise.

This isn't the worst sin she's committed—and one night of feeling something that isn't the endless cycle of self-abnegation is worth another reason to atone. And, some grimly humorous impulse says, if Jake could forgive her killing him he could forgive her fucking his friend.

Thinking of Jake threatens to sour the moment and Abby pushes forward, knocking Marcus off balance and sending him stumbling backwards. Savagely pleased, she bites at his lips, free hand rising to clutch his hair in restless fistfuls, as much to ruin his still too-polished exterior as to try and direct the kiss. 

Even that's not enough to chase away reality entirely. "Wait, wait." Letting go of Marcus, she steps back and yanks the zipper on her jacket down, tossing it aside with uncharacteristic abandon and following it up with her shirt before going to work on her boots. When he doesn't immediately follow suit she looks up, impatient. "Well? Take off your clothes."

There's a stunned look on his face, but it morphs to something darker as her pants join the rest on the floor. The way he almost trips over himself in his eagerness to undress relieves any anxiety about the effects of age on her body, and she watches him strip down without shame.

He's slender, each muscle neatly defined and lightly dusted with hair, and she realizes with a start that Marcus is handsome. She's always been aware of the fact, but here in her quarters half-dressed and suddenly a man rather than a cypher and representation what's wrong with the council it takes on a different emphasis: _Marcus_ is handsome.

The realization is a blow to the gut; arousal, and something that makes this feel too much like it's about him and not the situation to sit comfortably. 

"This happens once, and it doesn't mean anything." 

Pausing in the middle of unlacing a boot, Marcus looks up, jaw tight. "Agreed. And I'd prefer you didn't tell anyone about this."

"Trust me, I don't want this getting around either." It probably says something revelatory and horrifying about all their years butting heads across the council table that fighting even now doesn't make him less attractive—it only pushes the pain further away, makes it easier to exist for the time being in a place that isn't anchored in the past with all its guilt. 

Dropping his shoes with a loud thud and shucking off his pants, he sucks his cheeks in, studying her with an expression she can't put a name to. "I'm glad we understand each other." 

_Understand_ each other. She's not sure they ever have, and when she laughs helplessly at the idea his face tightens.

"Is something about this funny?"

She laughs again, shaking her head. "Call it delayed hysteria." He'll think she means because of yet another reprieve from floating, or the humiliation of Thelonious' pointedly public setdown; just another dig. It's safe to admit it here because he won't believe the honesty behind the ostensible jibe. "Or maybe I'm drunk, too. The effects can look the same. A lack of inhibitions..."

His adam's apple bobs as she stalks towards him, throat clicking on a swallow. "Abby..."

When she runs a palm over his chest he shudders, eyes fluttering shut. No matter what else he thinks about her, he can't hide behind a wall of stiff reserve now; not when his reactions are clear as a pane of glass and his cock is digging into her lower belly, hot and insistent.

His breath hisses out in a pained rush as she reaches down to wiggle her hand between their bodies and cup the hard length through his briefs. Sight hadn't prepared her for how big he feels in her grasp, how essentially _male_. There's a damp patch spreading under her palm, and she curves her hand as best she can in the scant space between them. "Making poor choices." 

It's a new experience to tell a man what a horrible mistake they're about to make while he shakes under her hands, if nothing else.

Suddenly impatient, she steps away and unhooks her bra, shimmying out of her underwear and standing naked in front of him. Each imperfection and mark of time on her body feels obvious but Marcus' eyes widen and he takes an involuntary step forward, looking like a man too overwhelmed by a feast to know where to start.

" _Abigail_." Her name is a rasp in a lower register than she's ever heard from him and instinctively her thighs press together, breath catching in a sharp inhale.

He watches the motion, head tilted and she can see the moment he finds the same power in her obvious arousal as she does his. Some of the awe fades away, replaced by calculation, and he peels off his own underwear, taking in the way her lips part and rose spreads across the skin over her cheekbones.

This time there's no uncertainty in his kiss and it's her turn to gasp when he reaches between her legs, thumb brushing over her clit. 

"Good?" He runs his finger in a line down her center, tracing widening circles until he's brushing her legs, taking in how she's already sticky down to the tops of her thighs. "God, you're already soaked."

They end up on the floor through unspoken mutual agreement, with Abby on her back with Marcus pressed up on his elbows over her, held in the cradle of her hips, face buried in her neck. His cheeks bear the faintest hint of stubble and the gentle abrasion might itch later, but for now it's another sensation in the overwhelming host.

Fisting her hands in his hair, Abby sucks in a steadying breath as his mouth moves across her jaw and sends up a prayer of thanks she'd never had her implant removed after Jake died. Marcus' cock is snug between her thighs, covering himself in her wetness as he keeps up a gentle roll of his hips; the blunt head of his cock is maddeningly close to where she needs it, catching on her entrance and slipping away again. 

"Marcus, would you just—" Get on with it, just _fuck me_. Saying the words feels like losing ground and she growls in frustration, tilting her pelvis up in an attempt to force the issue. " _Marcus_!"

"It's good, isn't it?" He rubs his cheek against her throat, rolling his whole body into the motion like a pleased house cat and huffing out a pleased sound when she shudders and clutches at his shoulders, pulling him in. "You want this. Want _me_."

Denying it is pointless. Instead Abby digs her nails into the thin skin over his shoulder blades, breathing in ragged gulps. 

"Just say it. Say you want me, and you can have me."

Her pulse throbs in her neck and hands and between her legs, booming loud in her ears. "I—"

"Abby, _please_."

It's the open desperation in his voice that sends her tumbling over the edge, hands clutching at him convulsively.

"I want it—I want you, Marcus, if you don't—"

The plea cuts off as he drives forward, seating his cock to the hilt in one thrust and driving the breath from her lungs. He's too big for it to be an easy slide and she savors the bracing pressure as he makes room for himself inside her.

"God." His breath stirs the hair at her temple, cool against the sticky strands. "Abby. Abby, you feel..."

Swallowing hard, he slowly withdraws and then surges forward again, and again, until she's completely open to him and he can easily glide into the space he's made, building up speed until each stroke inward pushes her breath out in rhythm with his own.

After so long alone, contained in her own empty set of rooms with nothing but the fleeting touches of everyday life to sustain her, this much sensation threatens to drown her in each individual detail. It feels _good_ , so good tears gather at the corners of her eyes and leak slowly down into her hair. 

For all this is Marcus Kane making it happen the sheer relief is breathtaking. He's right about the morning regrets, but in the moment it's hard to keep her feelings from blurring around the edges and taking away some of the urge to punish him for being here when Jake isn't.

"Marcus." Breathing his name out, she tugs impatiently at his hair, trying to guide his head back up. 

Obedient, he nuzzles at the corner of her mouth then traces the seam of her lips with his tongue, sliding in when she opens to him. His shoulder blades jut out like wings when she runs a hands down his back, carefully mapping out each bump and dip of his vertebrae with her fingertips until she's memorized the broad expanse of skin by feel. 

She knows him now, would be able to find him even without use of her other senses. The thought strikes with all the force of a hammer and Marcus sobs into her mouth as she clenches brutally around him. His hips slam into her own, the slap of skin on skin rising above everything else and spurring him on.

Releasing Marcus' hair, Abby reaches between her thighs, pressing her fingers to her clit like she does when there's no time to enjoy buildup, moaning low and moan when he lets out an animal grunt, groaning inarticulate encouragements and compliments, repeating the same command: _do it, beautiful, please Abby please do it I want to see you_. 

Orgasm almost comes as a surprise; one moment suspended in the distance and the next racing through her veins as she clenches tight around him, keening and clawing red furrows in his shoulders, helpless against the onslaught.

Marcus' hips speed up and he drops his head to her shoulder, his full body weight coming down on her as his arms give out. She feels him push deep one last time and come, hears his wounded moan, but it's all sound in a vacuum. She barely notices when his hips stutter to a stop and he presses one last kiss to the corner of her mouth before pulling out with a soft, wet sound and rolling to the side.

Reality filters back in detail by detail. First the cold of the floor against her back, then the blossoming bruises in the shape of Marcus' mouth and the ache in her thighs and suddenly she's tired again, exhausted down to her very bones without anger or lust to prop her up. 

Reason accompanies the absence of adrenaline, and Abby can see them as a stranger might: sticky with sweat and come, each littered with reddening marks and staring up at the ceiling.

Abruptly, she stands, collecting her scattered clothes and tugging them on. She'd known it was mistake, and she'd done it anyway. Tomorrow he'll still be Kane, and she'll still be devoted to pursuing her agenda over his, pin or no. Trying to ignore the twinges of pain between her legs, a precursor to tomorrow's aches she looks down at him, face as blank as a paper doll. "You should go."

Marcus blinks repeatedly like a man trying to shake off a dream and nods once, sitting up. "Of course." The corners of his mouth curve down, lips flattening into a hard line he repeats, "Of course."

If there's disappointment in his voice she pretends not to hear it, averting her eyes as he pulls his armor on piece by piece until he's Kane again, all sharp lines and arrogance. 

Pausing by the door, he gives a sardonic little nod. "Good night, Abby." 

"Good night, Marcus." If it weren't for the way his hair sticks up in stiffening whorls and his uniform is wrinkled beyond the bounds of respectability, they could be passing each other in the halls. 

Pausing by the doorframe, he turns back. "Abby?"

 _Don't let him say it_. The thought is immediate and fierce, because Kane looks on edge in the same way he had been when he'd confronted her about Raven, as if her nerve impresses him and that only compounds his anger.

She raises her chin, defiant, and encourages him with a raised eyebrow. Let him take his pound of flesh.

"You wanted me. Whatever else you tell yourself about tonight, you wanted me." He inclines his head in farewell and turns on his heel with careful precision, leaving Abby to gape at his back.

 _You wanted me_. 

The words echo in her head as she showers and climbs into bed, merciless for their lack of insult. She _had_. It would have been better if he'd lashed back and she could throw all the uncertainty into anger again. That she could fight back against.

Instead, when she dreams it's of Marcus, over her and in her and as impossible to avoid as his words: _you wanted me_.


	2. hope i'll be given another whole lifetime to learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby fail to deal with their shit AGAIN and nothing says "best morning after" like your coworker/surrogate son listening in.

 

  
If there's one thing to recommend no longer serving on the council, it's that she doesn't have to face Marcus in the cold light of day. The night before feels like a fever dream, but looking in the mirror proves the evidence of its passing is unavoidably real. At least no council meeting means she doesn't have to sit across from him and pretend she knows how to feel about any of this.

Once she gets to medical she quickly finds out no meeting doesn't mean no commentary. Ironically, the very actions that lost her a council seat seems to have granted her a new level of familiarity and trust from people who might never have dared tease the head of medical before.

It must be the idea of being the generation to return to the ground; people are giddy, palpably so, and all day she's peppered with sly comments about what happened to her neck and if there's any chance it's going to spread.

It's both embarrassing and gratifying. It means more attention brought to something she'd rather avoid, yes, but it also means they trust her enough to feel comfortable addressing her as a person and not just a doctor so she endures it with occasionally strained good grace.

Jackson is the real problem. His eyebrows raise as soon as she walks in, only to disappear into his hairline when she's close enough he can see the patches of red on her neck and the lovebite that stubbornly refuses to stay hidden beneath her collar.

She manages to put him off for three and a half hours, shoving patients into his path and demanding inventory checks before finally resorting to sending him on a trip to engineering to ask Sinclair a question she doesn't need the answer to. When he protests, she claims it's too sensitive for the comms and she can't leave during clinic hours.

That gives her one last stretch of peace before he returns, the scrape and glide of the doors sounding the death of her chance to get out of sitting through a well-intentioned interrogation.

"Sinclair said next time you want to waste my time, you should ask a less obvious question."

It sounds like something Sinclair might _mean_ , but not how he'd say it. Arching a brow, she gives Jackson an expectant look.

"Fine. He said that whatever I did, it must have been bad enough you didn't bother to think up a good excuse."

Now _that_  sounds like Sinclair. Sighing, Abby puts her hands on her hips and wishes again there weren't eight inches between them. "It was good enough you went and asked him."

Not to be deterred, Jackson waves off her attempt to avoid answering his inevitable barrage of questions. "You had to know I'd be happy for you. It's been a year, you're allowed a little comfort." Face set mulishly, he narrows his eyes. "So, why don't you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"If there's nothing to talk about, why don't you tell me what you did last night?"

"First—and I'm not allowing that there's anything that needs to be discussed—because this is our workplace, and it's really not appropriate. Second—"

His crow of triumph interrupts her, and Abby resists the urge to just order him to drop the subject. "Come on, Abby. Who was it?"

She's saved from answering by the heavy tread of boots just outside.

"'It' is none of your business." Turning to the heavy plastic flaps, she shoots Jackson a quelling look and steps forward. "Come on in, we're back here."

"Abby. Jackson."

Of course it's Marcus. _Of course_. It could hardly be anyone else when Jackson is on the scent and she hasn't had the time to build enough distance from the night before to hide her reactions. 

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Kane jerks his head in what might tenuously be called a greeting. "If you have a moment, I thought I might update you on certain..." He pauses, glancing at Jackson and changing his wording midstream. "Developments, on the ground."

If it weren't the kind of glaring sign that his strange behavior is tied to her own, she would appreciate the opportunity to see Marcus caught flat-footed for once.

"Absolutely. Jackson, if you could give us a moment?"

He retreats far enough to be out of earshot but lingers, shoulders back and spine straight in a show of entirely uncharacteristic posturing. A fond smile touches her lips, and she shakes her head at him before turning back to Marcus with an encouraging look.

Rather than share whatever it is he came to say, Marcus' eyes catch on the purpling mark he'd left and hold there.

 _You wanted me_. The words hang between them and her skin prickles, echoes of the night before. The hope that she'll be able to maintain the illusion that seeing him hasn't set her off-balance melts off like vapor, especially as she catches sight of Jackson sidling closer from the corner of her eye.

"...you said you came to tell me something?"

"Right. Yes." Nodding, he clears his throat again. "Clarke spoke to the council, today. The kids are all right. We gave them coordinates to a nearby supply depot."

"Good. That's good." Clarke spoke to the council. She could have seen her daughter again, reassured herself that she's safe and instead it was Diana at the table. They've never been _friends,_  but they've never been enemies either and all the same for a moment Abby hates her so much she can't breathe. "I... thank you. For letting me know."

"She did well. With the council." The words are abrupt, poured out in a rush as if Marcus doesn't know how to let them out without applying force. "You would have been proud."

"Oh." Her lips form the word silently. Of all the things Marcus might have told her it's the only one that could unsettle her more than bringing up the night before. Swallowing hard, she reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. "Thank you, Marcus." This time it's entirely sincere, because somehow he'd known the only way to soothe some of the pain that comes from knowing her choices put Clarke out of reach again.

Jackson stares openly from across the room, the cogs turning and connecting the correct pieces in record time. She can see him put it all together when she touches Marcus, his brows snapping together in disbelief and then suspicion.

Marcus can feel it too, and he fidgets under the scrutiny, stepping away and straightening the immaculate front of his jacket as her hand drops.

"I thought you should know." Carefully not looking at Jackson, he turns with military precision and ducks through the sheeting separating their inner world from the rest of of Go-Sci.

Jackson waits until his footsteps fade away entirely before whirling on her, eyes almost comically wide.

"Kane? Abby, tell me it wasn't him."

She might avoid telling Jackson things, but she's never lied to him. Sighing, she searches for the words to explain what happened when she barely understands it herself.

"I can't do that, Jackson."

Clasping her hand in one his, he shakes his head in a violent rejection of her words. "Abby, he tried to have you floated. If the council hadn't decided they needed a doctor more than they needed to punish you, he would have done it again." His fingers dig into her wrist, desperate. "You know he would have."

It's easy to forget sometimes he had been little more than a child when his mother died. He's grown into such a competent doctor and a good man, but it's the child who clings to her now.

"Sweetheart... it's okay."

"No, it isn't. He almost _killed_  you." When Abby pulls him into a hug he's shaking, fine trembling that rips at her heart. "I thought you were going to die."

Eyes wet, she reaches up to stroke the hair off his forehead. "I know. I know, but I'm here. I'm here, I'm all right. I'm here. You're all right." She had known intellectually that her actions carried heavy consequences for other people. Knowing it doesn't prepare her for the way Jackson struggles to swallow past the tears and mutter an affirmation, habit of call and response ingrained from years learning to anticipate each other's needs. "I'm sorry, Jackson."

"Don't be sorry, just—don't do it again."

Tightening her hold, Abby rubs a hand comfortingly up and down his back. "I can promise you, I'm not doing anything that would prevent me from making it down to see my daughter again."

Invoking Clarke makes Jackson relax, and bit by bit his breathing calms.

"You only made me cry so I wouldn't talk about you having sex with Kane anymore."

His laugh is watery when she squawks in outrage but no less genuine for it, and Abby can't help but laugh too, letting him go with one last squeeze.

"Well, did it work?"

He laughs again, more like himself. "Not really. It's _Kane_."

"I didn't plan it, thank you."

He looks conflicted, like he's not sure whether to approve of her foray into taking his advice about giving herself permission to enjoy life or object because she did it with someone he can't stand. "You couldn't have not planned it with Sinclair?"

"He has a _wife_."

"...he does? I've never seen her." Stymied for a moment, he rallies with, "David Miller?"

" _Jackson_!"

This time, he's the one who pulls her into a hug. "I still don't like him, but... fine, I'll let it go."

The rest of the day is companionable and he doesn't mention Kane once, even if when he thinks she's busy she catches him casting disapproving glances at the door like he expects Marcus to reappear. She doesn't call him on it; disapproval is fine, and it's better directed at a man who isn't there than at her.

 

* * *

 

Which each step towards her quarters, Abby tells herself Marcus won't be there. He'd made his appearance in medical and now he'll retreat back to the safety of meetings she's no longer allowed to attend.

It was just once. It was just once. She repeats the words until they start to feel true, and she's nearly convinced herself he won't be there by the time home comes into view.

"...Marcus." She can't decide if she should be offended by his presence at her door or concerned. When his head jerks up and he looks like a rabbit caught in a snare, concerned seems the better option. "Did something else happen with the kids?"

"No, no." He shakes his head in a sharp negative, mouth twitching upwards at the corners in way she's coming to learn means he's nervous. "The radio's been silent all evening and the last check-in this afternoon established conditions are the same. They'll call in again in the morning."

"Oh, good." It's a relief, but nothing that couldn't have been covered earlier. Abby inhales, uncertain. "Was there something else?"

"I thought, after last night..." He trails off, gazing at her expectantly.

"You thought." Her tone flattens, mouth drawing into a displeased line. "What did you think?"

"Oh for God's _sake_ , Abby." At least when he's frustrated with her he's not communicating solely in half-sentences and meaningful glances. "I'm not here for that, but we're both adults. I thought we should at least acknowledge it happened."

The faint disappointment his emphatic denial stirs in her is an unwelcome surprise. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shoves the feeling aside. "I'm not denying it happened, I just don't think there's anything to talk about."

"You wanted me." There are those words again, infinitely more powerful coming from Marcus and not her memory. "You wanted _me_."

"I never said I didn't." It's a weak denial and he pounces on it, edging into her space as he grows more confident.

"No, but you won't say that you did." His eyes are intent, half-smile not reaching them. "I'll admit I wanted you—nothing hard about that, is there?"

"I—" Somehow he's turned refusing to admit weakness into weakness of its own and Abby's pulse flutters, torn between rising to the bait and the instinct that says to hold onto any power she can grasp between them. "I wanted you."

The words are wrenched out of her through sheer bloodyminded refusal to cede ground and they hang in the air between them, taking on a life of their own.

He nods, smile fading away as he stares down at her, so intent she wants to turn away and hide everything written on her face. "I wanted to hear you say it." His hand raises, hovering in the air between them like he wants to touch her before falling back to his side. "Thank you."

If there's a way to respond to that kind of naked honesty without revealing too much herself Abby doesn't know it, and she stays pinned under his regard like a butterfly under glass. This Marcus is more like the too-serious boy, always just a step behind Jake she remembers from childhood and not any of the versions of Marcus she's come to know as an adult.

They stare at each other, suspended for a few long moments before he blinks and looks away. She can't help feeling bereft, as if they'd approached a door only to turn away and keep walking.

His "goodnight, Abby" floats back from half a corridor away but she stays frozen in place, watching his progress, unable to respond until he's long past out of earshot.

"Good night, Marcus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, it's a series! I doubt I'll be updating quite as often from now on (the goal is once a week rather than once a day) but the plan is to do one chapter for each episode of season one, rounding us out at seven.


	3. in this age of confusion i have need for your company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby surpass expectations and tentatively approach the idea of not failing to deal with their shit, we diverge from canon more than ever, and Diana Sydney Is Not To Be Trusted.

Despite not inviting him in, Marcus lingers; he's in her dreams again, and Abby spends the morning with her heart in her throat, sure that each set of approaching footsteps outside is Marcus invading yet another of her sanctums only to be somehow let down when they belong to a patient. By afternoon she's regained equilibrium, enough so that she agrees to leave on-time for once and allow Jackson to run things overnight. It's a good test of his skills, and it means she can put in an attempt to rest for more than a few hours at a time.

The call comes six hours later, pulling her out of a deep sleep.

"Abby?" It's plainly Councillor Kane on the other end and not man who'd left her so disconcerted the night before. His voice is terse, bordering on rude.

It takes her a moment to muster a reply. "Yes?"

"We have need of your help in medical."

She blinks down at her hands blearily, still half-lodged in sleep. "Jackson–"

"Isn't you. Get down here."

There are guards outside medical when she arrives, and they only let her in after a quiet conference with each other. It's barely an inconvenience and it works under her skin anyway, making her thank you sharp. This has been her corner of the Ark for so long any challenge to her ownership feels like a slap to the face.

"Did you post guards outside? Marcus, what's going on?"

Mouth a firm slash, he nods to the bundle of sheets—the _shroud_  on her operating table. "It's Shumway. I posted the guard to discourage anyone who might want to see what we carried in."

Of all the victims he might have brought her, Shumway is unexpected. "How?"

"Suicide. At least, that's what it looks like." He doesn't sound like he lends much credence to what it looks like. "He was arrested tonight—for treason."

" _Treason_?" She parrots the word back, shocked. "What did he do?"

"He's the one who gave Bellamy Blake that gun."

Abby's head jerks as she turns to stare at the body, mouth slightly open. "He's the one who tried tried to kill Thelonious."

Nodding grimly, Marcus taps his fingers against his thigh in an agitated beat. "This whole time, it was him. Who knows what else he's gotten away with right under my nose?"

It's not an unreasonable concern. Shumway was smug and unpleasant, but he'd been effective at his job. If he'd managed to conceal his involvement in the shooting while spending all his time under Marcus' watchful eye, there's a good chance he'd been able to conceal more.

Stripping the body slowly, Abby sets the makeshift coverings to the side. Shumway looks smaller on the table, stripped of the smug assuredness that fueled him in life. The autopsy is an easy one; exsanguination, by way of the wounds on his arms. There's nothing to suggest he hadn't made them himself despite Marcus' disbelief.

"Well?"

Drawing the sheet up over Shumway's pallid face, Abby turns to Marcus and shakes her head. "Honestly, if there's evidence of foul play I'm not the one who can find it. These kind of wounds are well within the realm of what he could inflict on himself."

" _Damnit_." Nearly vibrating with tension, Marcus rakes a hand through his hair. "Shumway was a lot of things, but he wasn't the type to take the easy way out." Aggravated, he pushes away from the wall and crosses to the table himself, glaring down at the covered body as though he can force the answers out of a corpse by strength of will. "I was the one who brought him in. He was ready to float for what he'd done. He betrayed his people. Tried to kill his chancellor, and he was _proud_  of it all."

He sounds baffled by the idea, as if that level of dishonesty is so contrary to his nature he can't bring himself to understand why anyone might go through with it. It's hard to reconcile the Marcus Kane he'd been only a few weeks ago with the man he is now, the man pacing the length of her operating room and winding himself into a coil over disloyalty from the man who nearly delivered him the chancellorship.

"This doesn't fit." This time the words are more to himself, and he reaches out to touch the edge of the sheet. "Something about this isn't right."

Nothing about it is right but rather than saying so, Abby nods. "I wish I could do more to help." Complications between them aside, Thelonious has been woven into the fabric of her life so thoroughly it seems impossible to consider a world without him. Shumway's motivations matter, if knowing them could make the difference in protecting him.

Grunting dismissively, Marcus shakes his head. "No, it's not your responsibility to find the answer for me. You did what I asked, and I trust your medical opinion. If you say the answer isn't in how he died, I'll look elsewhere."

"...oh." It's such a resounding statement of faith in her abilities that Abby staggers under the weight, unable to find the right response.

Looking up, Marcus catches the surprise on her face and exhales, a sharp audible sound. "After all this time, you can't think I don't respect your skills as a doctor."

A sharp retort about all their time spent clashing across the council table rises to her lips, but she forces it back and winces apologetically. "You have to admit, you've spent more time detailing my faults."

His eyes narrow. "And you have to admit you've given me more than enough cause to detail them. You're stubborn, Abby—" she gasps indignantly, good intentions momentarily fled with the need to point out the hypocrisy of that charge given his own track record, but Marcus forestalls the protest with an upheld hand. "Let me finish. You're stubborn and you make rash choices without thinking through the consequences."

As much as she'd like to argue with the assessment, she can't. Taking her silence for the reluctant agreement it is, he presses harder. "The _serious_  consequences. What happens to medical without you?"

She blanches. Jackson will be ready to step into her shoes someday soon, but not now and there's no one else to fill the place she'd leave behind. "They'd get by."

"Maybe, but at what cost? How many patients lose their lives because you didn't consider all the possible outcomes?" He takes a step closer, eyes intent on her own. "Why do you think I gave you a chance to explain away the morphine you gave to Nygel?"

The memory of the day is clear, the terror and hope of waiting for Raven to fall preserving each moment in stark lines. She remembers Marcus holding his power over her head, delaying the killing blow to prove the point.

"I thought you were stringing it out." Hearing the words out loud makes them brutal and hastily she adds, "I was angry, and afraid."

He hisses through his teeth, wounded despite her attempt to soften the blow. "Is that what you think of me?" Under the affront, there's a thread of something plaintive.

"I don't know what I think anymore." Her voice is low. "Marcus..."

"Don't." He looks stricken, eyes far away and seeing a table covered in remembrances of the lives he'd taken. "Maybe you should have seen me that way."

"No, Marcus. No. Please, look at me." Seizing his sleeve, she pulls it towards her until he looks up. "You wouldn't do that. I understand that, now."

" _Abby_." There's a sheen of tears in his eyes and it's not a choice to kiss him, it's an inevitability.

" _Ahem_." Jackson's cough is more of a bellow. When they spring apart like guilty teenagers he's standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, radiating disapproval. "Abby, if you're done in here we have patients who need our help, and the guard outside won't let them through."

Marcus won't look up from his boots, but he gives a crisp nod. "I'll speak with them." His exit looks more like a man fleeing from the hangman, leaving her to Jackson's pinched face and judgement alone. Coward.

"After an autopsy? In _medbay_?"

"Don't start."

 

* * *

 

After a brief sweep Jackson insists he has everything in hand and firmly herds her out the door, but with Marcus' words still ringing in her head trying to sleep again feels like an exercise in futility.

She heads to the mess instead, inspecting the meager selection and finally selecting a dented apple and some water before scanning the room. Sinclair is seated at one of the tables near the far doors, and he raises a hand in greeting, beckoning her over.

"You're up late." Abby makes a face, and he laughs. "Early, then."

"What about you?" Late, going by the looks of him; there's grease smeared along the length of one of his cheekbones and dark fingerprints stippling his temples.

Wry, he holds up hands blackened up to the wrists. " _Very_  late. I left Wick in charge for the afternoon, then came here to grab food before I get some well-earned sleep." Lifting his cup, he takes a long sip and sighs with satisfaction. "So, what did Jackson do to deserve the runaround yesterday? I wasn't sure he knew how to annoy you."

She laughs, shaking her head. "I hope you don't think I'm going to answer that."

"Not really, but there's no harm in asking." Sinclair capitulates easily, taking a few heaping bites. "Mmm, good. Anyway, I was going to stop by medical and try to find you before I went to my quarters, so this is convenient."

Steady in the knowledge that if it was something urgent he would have come right away, she takes a bite of her apple and nods encouragingly.

"I talked to Raven."

 _Raven_. Abby's smile is immediate and wide. After nine days spent watching her pull miracles from nothing, she hadn't doubted the pod would work, but believing in her skill and determination didn't negate the risks. The best mechanic can't prevent all the things that could have gone wrong; the relief of finding out she survived hasn't abated yet.

"How is she? She said she was fine over the radio, but that could mean anything from bruises to a cracked rib."

Chuckling appreciatively, Sinclair nods. "I didn't get all the details, but I think this time fine really means fine."

Hearing that releases tension Abby hadn't known she was holding, and she sags a little in her seat.

Tactfully not mentioning that she had good reason to worry, Sinclair nods. "She says—and I quote—'after babysitting a bunch of morons all high out of their minds, tell Abby I wouldn't take her job if you put a gun to my head'."

Her laugh is loud enough the few people sitting around them turn and look, and with an apologetic wave she shakes her head. "That sounds like Raven. Did she happen to mention _why_ all the kids were high?"

"She said something about bad food?" That's a relief, at least. With Monty Green and Jasper Jordan along, God only knows what they could have been up to. "She also wanted me to tell you Finn's doing all right. Already back on his feet."

"Oh, good." He stops for long enough she begins to eat again, ready to wrap the conversation up with one last piece of medical news. Then Sinclair shifts in his seat, clearing his throat meaningfully. When she looks up, he tilts his head to the side and arches a brow.

"So, nine days to repair a piece of technology two inches from scrap." His tone carefully neutral and Abby feels like a scolded child nonetheless, filling in the judgement herself. "What were you going to do if she hadn't helped? Last time I checked, you weren't an engineer."

Flushing guiltily Abby looks down at her hand and fiddles with her ring, turning it in half-circles. He'd been her original plan. They'd been classmates and he'd been her constant companion while they designed the wristbands; if anyone would be able to put a barely functional pod together in record time, it would have been him.

Rapping softly on the table, he brings her eyes back up to his. "Abby." Face set in serious lines, he lowers his voice. "Why didn't you tell me what you two were doing?"

It's the question she's been dreading. "I almost did, but was bad enough involving Raven. I couldn't ask anyone else to risk their lives on this." There's no question he would have readily agreed. "And you're too important to the ship."

"And you aren't?" Sinclair takes a pointed look around the room and the people beginning to mill in and out, all of them looking at her with varying degrees of interest or respect. "I don't know, I think the head of medical at the very least might qualify as essential personnel."

"I—" There's no way to refute the point, and Abby sighs. "Fine. The next time I appropriate an escape pod, I'll invite you."

"It's all I ask."

Giving in, Abby shakes her head and laughs. "Was there anything else?"

"Ah—yes." Suddenly cagey, his gaze darts to the side. "She said to tell you that Clarke will come around, and that's she's doing all right too."

He's too familiar with her worry over Clarke to bother guarding how the news strikes her. _Dad's dead because of you_. The words are impossible to escape, and Raven's confidence doesn't take into account the reasons Clarke should be angry.

Why should Clarke forgive her? On some level, she can't forgive herself.

Forcing a smile, she nods at Sinclair, trying not the see the sympathy in his eyes. He may not wear a ring, but the inescapable pain of losing a spouse is one he can easily imagine. "Thank you." He doesn't push her about Clarke, just nods and continues to eat, giving her the time to collect her thoughts and rally with a smile that's more sincere. "And next time you're on the radio with Raven, tell her I said to try and  _stay_  fine."

"I said the same thing." Finishing off his water, he raises his empty glass in an ironic toast. "But she's got a mind of her own, so I'd count on some work to do." The depth of pride in his voice is nothing short of paternal.

"You did well with her."

"Me? No, that's all her. I just gave her an opportunity to do it." Standing, he collects his tray. "And now, I'm going to get some sleep. You should think about doing the same."

 

* * *

   
It takes a full hour to fall asleep, and when she does it's to dreams of Clarke disappearing down a long corridor, always just out of arm's reach, refusing to wait and let Abby hold her again. When the sound of repeated knocking at the door wakes her, it's a relief.

"Abby."

"...Diana. How are you?"

She's a surprise. Coming to gloat about her new position isn't like her; Diana had always favored a sly dig over outright attacks, and after what had nearly happened in medbay she'd thought it might be Marcus.

"Oh, fine." Glancing around the hallway with a gently pointed sigh, she nods her chin at the room behind Abby. "May I come in? I thought it might be nice to catch up."

Diana's never done anything without a hidden motivation, but turning her away would cause more trouble than it's worth and make her look petty all in one fell swoop. Nodding, Abby backs away from the door and pastes a welcoming smile on her face. "Of course, come in. It's been a long time."

Since she lost the last election and Thelonious chose a new circle for the council, passing Diana over. They both circle that truth carefully, making pleasant small talk as Diana examines her quarters. It's impossible to ignore the way her eyes sweep the room and take in every ding and dent, the way the blanket on the couch has been patched so many times the original fabric is impossible to discern and Abby stiffens under the scrutiny.

"Before I say anything else, I just wanted to clear the air." Fingering the pin at her collar significantly, Diana inhales quietly, the picture of apology. "I know I gained this because you lost it, but I hope you won't hold it against me. When Thelonious offered, I thought I had to say yes. For the good of the Ark, of course."

"Of course." Her weak agreement makes Diana smile, and she moves further into the room, picking up the few pieces of decoration with a casually possessive air before stopping on a picture of Jake and Clarke, steps slowing to a halt as she looks down at their matching grins, as bright as they had been when it was taken.

"I was so sorry to hear about Jake." The usual layer of careful affectations she's gained over the years drops away, and Abby remembers in a painful jolt the years when Diana was as innocent as the rest of them, the vaunted transitional generation. "He was a good man."

It's easy to see she means it, that she'd liked Jake. _Everyone_ liked Jake.

"Though now that you've released his final message..." The unctuousness is back, and the hair on the back of Abby's neck prickles as Diana sets the photograph down. "It was a brave thing you did. The people are grateful to you—for telling them the truth, and for bringing news of the ground."

Settling her weight on the couch next to her, Diana reaches out to pat her arm gently. "In fact, you're something of a folk hero to some of them. Brave Dr. Griffin, who got our kids to the ground and risked her life to save them when the chancellor wouldn't."

She hasn't moved her hand from Abby's forearm, and her grip tightens enough to feel the tips of her nails digging in. "You're a very popular woman right now, Abby. It would be a shame if you didn't do something good with it."

Any pretense of this being a social call drops away. Blinking, Abby looks down at the well-manicured hand curled around her arm and says, carefully blank, "What would you suggest I do?"

Diana's smile is fond. "Well. If you really want to know... I've heard rumors Muir has been taking advantage of his influence to collect extra rations. If it's true, I'm sure the people would come together and demand that he step down."

Muir. One of Kane's allies, and absolutely not the sort of the man to steal rations from the mouths of the people he'd sworn to protect—especially not when being found out would mean being floated. Not even the chancellor can excuse the theft of food. "Who told you that? If they're wrong and you go forward, an innocent man could be floated."

Diana leans in, conspiratorial, heads together like when they were girls. "It's not important, and if he's innocent... well, then it won't matter, will it." With Diana this close, hair bushing her shoulders, Abby is immediately conscious that she smells like sweat and antiseptic while Diana smells like soap and clean laundry. Whatever she'd paid to keep her clothes pristine, it had been worth it; there's something comforting about it, and Abby wants to lean in even as she visibly moves in for the kill. "But think about it—if the people wanted another representative of  _their_  voices on the council, who better than you? If the case is put before Thelonious, I don't think he can afford to say no right now."

Final blow landed, Diana sits back and lays a hand on her chest, all benevolent good will. "I could do it myself. I'm sure he'd listen to reason."

"I appreciate your faith in me, Diana." Abby can't think of much she appreciates less at the moment, but dealing with Diana has always meant stepping around her verbal snares before she can pull them tight. "But I think I've had enough of politics for the time being, even if I thought Thelonious would allow me back."

"Thelonious won't be chancellor forever, Abby."

There's nothing to her voice to say Diana is referring to anything but the natural transfer of power from chancellor to chancellor. Nothing in her face to suggest she's doing anything but indicating what they both know: she'd like to be chancellor again, and once Thelonious' term expires she'll run against him.

Abby's throat tightens, unease growing in the back of her mind. "All the same, I'm ready to just be a doctor for the time being."

"Mmm." With a disappointed hum, Diana shakes her head. "Are you sure? There's still so much more good you can do for our people. We're starting a new life on the ground—don't you think it could benefit from new leadership? You could be a part of that."

A lack of conviction had never been Diana's problem, or the oratory skills to back it up. Abby can't help but rouse to the idea, even as she notes Diana's eyes glowing with avaricious pride when it lands.

"I have to admit, it sounds appealing. But really, Diana, I—"

"Ah." Cutting her off, Diana clicks her tongue as if she can brush away the approval with one dismissive sound. "Don't answer now. Give it a couple days, and you can get back to me."

She's clearly not going to leave unless Abby agrees. Raking her hair out of her face, Abby summons up a diplomatic smile. "I don't think my answer will change, but all right. I'll get back to you."

With another no, but it's enough for Diana. "I'll be waiting." Rising gracefully, she waits for Abby to stand and walk with her before heading to the door. "It was good to talk to you, Abby." Diana's clean linen smell blocks out everything else again when she embraces her, chin brushing against her forehead. "We'll have to do this again."

"I'd like that." Her pulse races as Diana walks away, a warning drumbeat that refuses to slow.

 

* * *

 

  
_Thelonious won't be chancellor forever_.

Diana's words stay with her for the rest of the afternoon, through her return to medical and then her exit, dogging her steps on the way home. They're at the front of her mind when she wakes up, when she stops by Engineering to check in with Sinclair and through a full day of patients. They stay there through the rest of the day, jostling for attention when she dreams.

 _Thelonious won't be chancellor forever_.

The promise tumbles around in her mind as she gets ready to leave the next morning. Something in Diana's eyes, or maybe her voice— _something_ she had done irritates her like a grain of sand, itching and calling attention to itself and demanding she take action.

 _Thelonious won't be chancellor forever_.

"Marcus?"

"...Abby?" Shock is easy to read, even over the comms. "Has something happened?"

"—No." Her pause is a beat too long, and the way Marcus' focus comes to bear on the slip radiates down the line. "I was hoping to talk to you about it later, but it can wait until you're off-shift."

"I'll be right there."

Her insistence it's nothing that needs him to come now is given to dead air, and he's at the door fifteen minutes later.

"I told you, it wasn't anything that needs immediate attention."

"Abby." Eyebrows rising, he steps past the threshold, arm brushing against hers as he passes. "When was the last time you asked me to come to your quarters?"

Sighing in anticipation of the obvious setup he's thrown her way, Abby shakes her head. "I've never asked you to come to my quarters."

"Exactly." Her lack of enthusiasm doesn't dampen his own. "Is it about Shumway? Did you find something else?"

"It's not Shumway, but—I'm not sure it's anything to worry about at all." He gestures impatiently for her to continue, but the idea of telling him what they already know about Diana's designs on the chancellorship feels alarmist without that husky voice in her ear, reminding her that all things come to an end. "Diana came to see me the day before yesterday."

"...did she." His attention sharpens. "And what did she have to say?"

"She wanted to offer me a chance to retake a seat on the council."

Some of his intensity fades. "And give up her seat? Abby, I don't—"

"Not _her_  seat, Marcus. Muir's."

"She offered you Muir's seat." It doesn't escape his notice whose ally Diana offered up. "And how does she plan to accomplish that?"

Hesitating, Abby inhales. "She said she had evidence he'd been skimming rations. I don't know if she meant it, or if she was testing the waters, but..." His face tightens. "She said the people would be the ones to force the issue."

" _God_." Turning away in disgust, Marcus shakes his head. "She'd start a riot, and for what?"

"The chancellorship. She told me Thelonious wouldn't serve forever. I think she's currying favor for the next election. Building a coalition to beat you." Not just Thelonious; Kane is nothing if not unalterably loyal. Diana would never allow him to stay on the council once she took back the pin. "She thought I might be interested."

To his credit, he doesn't ask her if she was; just grinds his back teeth, a muscle in his jaw clenching. "I want to know if she contacts you again. Right away, this time. I mean it. This could be important."

"All right." He gives her a look and she repeats herself, a touch defensively, "I said, I will."

"Good." The tension doesn't leave him, but he accepts the answer. "She's bluffing about Muir, but things are unsteady right now. A rumor might be the match that lights the powderkeg."

For all her bravado when Thelonious accused her of wanting to start one, the consequences of a riot are ones she'll have an intimate hand in cleaning up, once it's through. She's seen firsthand how a mob can become a trapped animal, lashing out at anything between them and freedom. If rumors spread that a member of council is cheating them of food after everything that's happened, this mob would be an avalanche.

With the matter of Diana dealt with for the moment and his purpose for coming to her quarters filled, Marcus seems to notice all at once where he's standing, and what they'd done a few feet away barely a week ago. All at once, his face changes. "Abby..."

"Don't."

"Why not? It happened. It nearly happened again the other day, before Jackson interrupted us." There's a part of her that would like to argue it was only a kiss that time, but it would be admitting defeat and she just shakes her head helplessly.

"We said it was just the once."

Marcus takes a step closer, scanning her expression. "Is that still what you want?"

She should say yes. She _wants_ to say yes, to end this now and send him home to lick his wounds where he can't see her lick her own. "I don't know what I want." Other than it's not to tell him to leave.

He huffs out a mirthless laugh. "Well, at least that makes two of us." He laughs again, a short bark, and the hopeless sound pierces her heart. "Look at us. What are we doing?"

The sight of Marcus Kane unmoored pulls her in as surely as any gravitational force, just as impossible to deny. She's the one who reaches out, cupping his shoulder and turning him to face her.

"I don't know that, either."

His breath catches, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. The room feels suspended in sap, frozen and enclosed and waiting for what comes next.

"Abby. Abby, can I kiss you?"

She nods, one quick jerk of her head as her hands tremble, waiting for him to close the rest of the distance.

Kissing him with the veil of anger and grief is different, each detail standing out in relief on its own. His face is smoother from the morning's shave, his hands more tentative as he brings one up to rest on her waist. They breathe together, mouths brushing once, twice, until his tongue slides over the seam of her lips and she opens to allow him in.

The sounds of the kiss are slick and wet in the silence of the room, joined by their quickened breathing and the soft rustling of clothes. His initial nerves start to fade, lost in the familiarity their bodies already share. He stoops where she presses up on her toes, spreading his legs so her own can fit in the space between them.

"I have to go to work." She breathes the words into his mouth, still clutching restless fistfuls of his jacket.

"I know."

Neither of them let go, and Abby traces the jut of his cheekbone with the pad of her thumb, fingers extended to rest on the vulnerable skin of his jaw and throat. He shudders under her hand, hands gripping and releasing on her waist. She explores the hair curling at the nape of his neck and the soft shell of his ear, learning another piece of his body by touch.

Breaking the kiss reluctantly, she leans her forehead against his, hands falling to her sides. "I really do need to go."

He hums in acknowledgment, drawing in a deep breath like he needs to gather the strength to let go before he can force himself to do it.

"You're right. And I should get back. After Shumway..." He collects the pieces of himself he'd shed when he kissed her, spine growing straighter and face colder. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"...tomorrow?" What she's forgetting niggles at the edges of her mind, buried under the stress of the week and Diana's vague promises.

He turns back at the door, lips turning up in a crooked smile. "It's Unity Day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Benefits of one update a week: longer chapters! Same schedule for the next one, but since it's now relevant: you can pretty much assume canon shakes out the same way it does on the show unless I directly change things up, but we're getting into the part where missing scenes become alternate timelines.


	4. and all the bells were ringing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby tiptoe ever-slowly towards dealing with their shit, rocks fall, people die, and Diana Sydney was Söze all along.

There's no real _need_  to be early for the pageant. The kids won't say anything she hasn't heard once a year for four decades, and Thelonious' speech will be equally as effective if she drifts in from medical and stands at the back.

None of that matters. Soon Clarke will be on the other end of a screen, close enough she could speak to her if it wasn't a shipwide event. That alone is worth handing Jackson the reins and leaving an hour early. Even the illusion of being close to Clarke again is worth having.

Nodding in acknowledgment to the patients in the mass of people, Abby drifts to one side so she can watch the swirl of humanity at a slight distance.

The crowd milling despite the hour is larger than ever, excitement passing like a spark from person to person, driving the conversation into a low, happy buzz, worlds away from just a week before. The thought of the ground makes it impossible to be anything but stunned and grateful.

A hand at her elbow makes her start, but she relaxes when Pike's familiar burr makes it clear there's no threat.

"Dr. Griffin. You got a moment?" Pike's shoulders are hunched in and he scans the room restlessly, shifting until his back is no longer to the door and he can keep half an eye on her while noting the slow trickle of people into the room.

"Of course." It's been years since he wore the uniform of the guard. All the same, his rigid attention doesn't call to mind a teacher. "Is everything all right?"

He grimaces expressively, casting one more surreptitious look at the door before quieting his voice to low rumble. "Look. I hate to do this to you, but I've asked for a meeting with the chancellor every day since we sent the kids down, and he hasn't agreed to a damn one."

"I'm not on—"

"The council anymore? Yeah, I heard. You made quite an impression on the way out." He manages a half-smile, tugging at the hem of his shirt with agitated fingers. "Somebody needed to do it."

Like he hadn't been able to. "Charles..."

Shaking his head, he brushes away the sympathy and redirects back to why he came. "Point is, I keep hearing whispers. Everybody seems to knows a parent or two who got a call from David Miller's kid, but nobody's talking details."

Because Thelonious would have asked them not to. Pike spots the weakness in her resolve and grasps at it with increasing desperation, his hands held up beseechingly before she can answer, palms out. "I know there were kids on that ship without parents to get a call. Jaha's stonewalling me, and I've got to know. I wouldn't ask if I didn't... _please_ Abby."

"Charles." His anguish is clear, and she folds delicate fingers over his larger ones, bringing his hand back to his side. "Of course. Of course, I'll tell you everything I know."

"How many dead?"

There's no easy way to break the news. Trying would be an insult to them both, and Abby wets her lips before shattering him. "Eleven of them."

He rocks back on his heels. " _Eleven._ "

There's something ragged and bleeding in his eyes, a gaping wound he either can't or won't hide. Uncomfortably, she realizes that each of those eleven is a child Charles Pike thinks he failed, children as important to him as her own.

"Who." Her eyes widen, but Pike presses with the kind of intensity that spells out the likelihood he'll accept a no gracefully. "Abby. If Jaha wants it quiet, I'll keep it quiet. I've done it before." Again she's struck by the burden they'd placed on him without any relief, and his next words make her decision clear. "They were my responsibility."

The crowd continues its excited babble in the background but the tempo dims as she watches Pike work to control his expression through her recitation of names, pupils contracting. "What about the Blake girl's brother, Bellamy?"

Now it's Abby's turn to control her expression. "Where did you hear—"

"I didn't, but he disappeared around the same time as the kids. He's Aurora's son—he was on that ship and we both know it." Her clearest memories of Aurora are from adulthood, long after she'd learned to smother a fierce temper under a respectfully downturned gaze, but the girl she'd been would have stopped at nothing to follow someone she loved into danger.

"He's all right."

"Good. Good." Swallowing thickly, he nods, resolute and diminished all at once. "I asked Jaha to let me go down with them. You think those eleven children would still be alive if I had?"

Some of them very well might have been spared if they'd had an adult and a former member of the guard to lead them. Allowing that feels impossibly cruel, so Abby opts for the kinder truth. "I can't answer that for sure, Charles. No one can."

"No. No, I guess they couldn't." He doesn't look like he agrees, but her fumbling attempt at absolution cauterized that open wound in his eyes, and inch by inch he draws back into himself. "Ah—thank you, Dr. Griffin. For being honest with me."

The implied slight to Thelonious lands and Abby can't find the words or the will to rebuke him. It's been Kane delivering news of Clarke; without him, left to rely on Thelonious alone, she'd be as blind and helpless as Pike.

"You should have been told before now."

He acknowledges the words with a grunt of agreement, eyes far away. "Look. All I got are those whispers, but I know people aren't happy. They feel like Alpha sent their kids down to die—" Her face twists, instinctive protest springing to her lips. "Hey. I know you fought for those kids. I know. But people are angry, and the chancellor needs to think about that when he's planning his next moves. Earth's got them hoping again, but that only goes so far."

"What are you telling me, Charles?"

"I'm telling you... be careful, all right? I'd tell the chancellor myself, but I haven't had much success tracking him down so far." His eyes narrow as Thelonious takes the podium, then go soft again when Kane takes his place behind his right shoulder. "And tell Marcus I said to keep an eye on his six."

Bobbing his head in a silent goodbye, Pike steps away, narrowly avoiding knocking over the woman waiting patiently a carefully respectful distance away. With Pike's warning still lingering in the air, her familiar face is a comfort.

"Vera." She opens her arms for the customary hug, brought back to childhood when Vera embraces her. Abby's head fits neatly under her chin when she slouches just a bit, and for a moment everything is quiet and safe.

"Abby." Vera always smells vaguely of earth, soil and the hot-mint of liniment for her knees and back. "It's wonderful to see you, sweetheart."

Religion hadn't played a large role in her childhood, but Vera had. Solid and steady and humble, never without a kind word or a smile. Vera's warm in all the places where Marcus can be cold, but the same core of steel runs through mother and son. The same faith, given different purpose and expression.

"Will you be on the first ship down?" Vera keeps a hand on her arm by habit, welcome in a way Diana's familiarity could never be.

"Yes." A world of relief is contained in that one word, and Vera's smile nearly matches her own for brightness. Knowing she'll see Clarke soon is still too fragile and precious to say much about it for fear of waking from a dream, so Abby adds, "Marcus will be coming, too." Maybe it's being in the presence of a woman she's never attempted to hide anything from, but her voice wavers on his name.

"Oh?" Vera's regard sharpens, taking in Abby's face with a new level of interest. "He hadn't told me. I'll have to ask him to bring down the Eden tree."

"I'm sure he'll be happy to."

"Oh, no, he'll fight it." Vera's smile is fond, and she glances across the room to where Marcus is watching them with focused attention, need to pay attention to Thelonious' speech apparently forgotten. "He finds it so hard to put his faith in something he can't see. His father was just the same."

Marcus' father is a dim figure in Abby's memory; stiff-backed and stern and gone too soon, leaving more of an impression on his son's life with his absence than his presence.

"But he'll say yes."

Vera's taken by surprise at Abby's certainty for a moment, inhaling and then letting her breath out again as if she's thought better of what she wanted to say. "He's a good son. A good man."

"He is." The quiet vehemence in her voice surprises Abby, but Vera just smiles like she's given her an answer to an unasked question.

"It was lovely to see you, Abby. If you'll excuse me, I think I see—Ava!" She calls out a greeting to a woman passing by, letting go of Abby's arm with one last squeeze to follow her.

"What did my mother want?" Given his inattention to anything but their conversation once it began and Vera's swift exit, Marcus' immediate appearance at her elbow is little surprise.

"To say hello."

"You didn't mention..."

"That we had sex on the floor of my quarters?" Dry as a desert, Abby raises both brows and watches red blotches spread across Marcus' cheeks. "No, Marcus. I managed to keep that back."

"Well. Good."

" _Good_?"

"Abby." Face pained, Marcus shakes his head. "It's not... I didn't mean to imply..."

"It's all right." Any sting is immediately soothed by his frantic search for a way to deny any insult he might have given. "Implications aside, I don't want to have that conversation with Vera either."

Their eyes meet and they share a smile of perfect understanding before Abby breaks the connection, looking to the side as her own cheeks go red. It feels like being a teenager again, milling around the room and affecting nonchalance when underneath she's anything but unruffled.

Marcus seems to share the feeling, and for a moment awkward silence hovers between them.

"You must be—"

"Are you—"

Their voices overlap and cancel each other out, breaking the tension. Abby laughs, waving him on. "It wasn't important. What were you going to say?"

Marcus blinks, visibly coming back to himself as her laugh fades to nothing. "You must be looking forward to the drop." It's boilerplate Marcus neutrality, except for the shared excitement he can't quite hide.

'Looking forward' hardly covers it, but Abby nods in agreement. "If I could take the ship down now, I would."

"She's doing well for herself. Clarke." He doesn't pretend her anxiety is about anything else. The blunt way he tackles a subject most people tiptoe around used to strike her as another way Kane refused to allow for decency; now, it's comforting. "The other children seem to have appointed her their spokesperson. She's been advocating for them passionately, even over the council's objections. And since she's down here while we're up here..." Those objections are immaterial, because no one can _make_  the kids yield, her daughter least of all. His mouth twitches, laugh lines crinkling the skin around his eyes. "It reminds me of someone."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"It was." Marcus isn't looking at her as he says it, scanning the crowd instead. "She's a strong girl."

It's sparse praise but _honest_ , and somehow more important for the plainspokenness. Abby's at a loss for words at first, struggling to find a way to explain what it means that Marcus has brought her these little pieces of her daughter to help sustain herself until they're reunited.

"Thank you." He nods, still not making eye contact, and she touches his shoulder gently. "Marcus." When he swings his gaze to meet hers, she tries to fill it with all the feeling of hearing about Clarke again. " _Thank you_."

"You're welcome." His eyes are as soft as they were that first night before she'd pulled away and left him cold and alone on the floor. An elbow catches him in the side, making him stumble and causing the moment to vanish as soon as it had come on. Shooting a look at the burly man who'd clipped him in his hasty rush to the door, Marcus' focus shifts. "Right. I should make sure..."

What he needs to make sure goes unsaid as he rushes away, leaving her staring at his retreating back for the second time in as many days.

"Well, he was certainly in a hurry. I hope everything's all right."

"Diana." Her intrusion is the eventual unwelcome one, and Abby swallows back a sigh. "He wanted to back get in place with the rest of the council to watch the kids."

"I'm so glad. It's good to see him back to himself after that unfortunate incident the other day."

The urge to ask what incident is strong, but Diana wouldn't bring it up if it weren't something Marcus would rather keep quiet and so Abby just nods, humming a vague agreement.

"I think we're all all in a better place than we were a few days ago."

Undeterred by the attempt at a polite change in the subject, she threads her arm through Abby's, casually proprietary. "That's right, you'll be seeing Clarke again soon."

Hearing her daughter's name on Diana's lips sends a shiver down Abby's back, irrational dread trickling like ice water into her veins. "I'm looking forward to it." She pushes the words past half-numb lips, looking out at the crowd instead of up at Diana.

"In light of that, I hope you've reconsidered my offer." Diana nods at a passing attendee, performatively gracious. "I think you'd be passing up a real chance to make changes. Isn't that what you've always wanted to do?"

It is, but not with Diana as the source of her ability to make those changes. Any offer she puts forward as altruistic carries a hidden barb, just waiting for Diana to dig in and extract her pound of flesh at her leisure. "As much as I appreciate it, I _am_  leaving in two days." She'd take the pin back in a heartbeat if it came from Thelonious, but allowing Diana to indulge the idea she might be able to use Abby to shore up support is dangerous. "It would be hard to serve on the council with all my attention on setting up a makeshift clinic—not to mention the distance."

"Never mind the distance." Leaning their heads together cozily and blocking the rest of the room from hearing her words, she has all the zeal of a true believer. "You want to build a new world—a better one, and so do I. Can I count on your help, Abby?"

Extricating herself from the firm grip on her arm, Abby manages a polite smile even as alarm bells clang with increasing urgency, demanding she get away. "I'm sorry, Diana, but my answer hasn't changed."

"Well." Her mouth pulls together, pleasant mask dropping for long enough Abby can see aggravation and a strange glint of triumph in her eyes before they're swallowed up by her patient councillor facade. "That's a shame. I think we would have worked well together. You'll let me know if you ever change your mind?"

Giving her arm a squeeze, Diana nods at a man across the room. "If you'll excuse me. I hope you enjoy the show."

Across the room, Marcus raises an eyebrow in question and she shrugs helplessly back before turning her attention back to the speech she once delivered herself. Clarke's face hovers over the girl's in the center of the crowd for a moment and then, there's nothing but sound and heat and abruptly, silence.

 

* * *

 

A shrill ringing in her ears signals the return of awareness, accompanied by dizziness and immediately after, pain. Then the screaming filters in and Abby is in motion without thought, grabbing the emergency kit off the wall and pushing to the center of the room, kneeling by a child wailing in terror and checking him for serious injury before stumbling past the fallen bodies of the rest of the council and towards Thelonious.

When he refuses her help and barks for Marcus she stumbles away again, legs still shaky but gaining strength with each step, attempting to impose her own order on the scene until a frantic plea calls her attention back and bit by bit the tableau moves into focus, details her brain stubbornly refused to see now clear as the blood running down Vera's face.

Kneeling beside them, Abby tries to take it in like a doctor but all she can see is Vera's arms, open and welcoming, the woman who deserves more than anyone else among them to take her first steps on the ground.

"Abby..."

 _Marcus_.

His face is pleading, intent perfectly clear without a single word. It's the same expression she's seen on the faces of so many in others the same position. She's kneeling next to a boy about to lose a parent and he's begging her to tell him the monsters aren't real, that he won't have to be alone.

Imperceptibly, she shakes her head in the negative and the dawning realization on Marcus' face strikes her heart like a knife.

With odd reluctance she stands, turning back towards the chaos still encircling their hushed little circle as the first words of the Traveller's Prayer fade into the general roar.

"What can I do?" Pike's face is grim, a bloody scrape running from temple to jawline. He brushes her off when she reaches for it. "It can wait. Dr. Griffin, what can I do?"

Shaking her head to clear it and forcing herself not to look back at Marcus, still kneeling on the floor, Abby focuses on the immediate, pointing out of the children from the pageant laying nearby, alive but with one leg bent at an unnatural angle. "Start with her. I need to start prioritizing, and clearing away the wounded who _can_  be moved now makes it easier."

"Where do I—"

"Medical. They know the procedure, they'll tell you what to do. _Go_ , Charles, and get back here as soon as you can."

The little girl's limbs dangle like a broken marionette's when Pike rises, cradling her as gently as any father. "I'll be back."

He stops by Marcus' side on the way out, leaning his leg briefly against his shoulder before vanishing around the corner. The touch brings Marcus back to himself, grief ruthlessly shoved aside as he takes in the room with a hawk's eye; the damage, the wounded and the dead.

"Sir." He grabs hold of Thelonious, shaking his collar and forcing his attention away from the wreckage of the celebration.

"Thelonious, listen to me. This was a _coup,_  not a system failure. The rest of the council is dead. Muir, Fuji, Kaplan, Cole..."

"Diana?" Thelonious' dazed horror sharpens into a twin of Kane's furious determination, face carved in stony lines.

With dawning horror, the spark of triumph in Diana's eyes takes on new, sinister meaning, and Abby is the one who answers his question. "She left before the explosion."

Marcus' expression goes dark. "I'll find her."

Eyes on the carnage, Thelonious dismisses him. "Do that. Tell the guard to enforce an Ark-wide lockdown immediately, and double their presence at the dropship."

"Sir." Hesitating before turning to fill his orders, Marcus nods down at her. "Abby."

Thelonious ignores his goodbye, turning back to her before Kane's even finished speaking. "What's the count?"

"Six so far. The council, Vera, and a man from Mecha, but Thelonious..." Her face is grave. "There's going to be more before the day is over."

" _God_." Scrubbing a hand over his face and coming away with blood and soot, Thelonious stares at the bodies sprawled like dolls scattered by an angry child all around them. "Kane will find out who did this. We will _not_  miss our launch window."

He repeats himself, this time at a bellow for the rest of the room's benefit, ever the politician even in crisis. "We will _not_  miss our launch window! That ship will make it to the ground in two day's time."

The idea of the dropship itself being compromised doesn't seem unlikely, not after a blast set by the kind of people who would consider children acceptable damage. "Thelonious, are you sure—"

"The ship will launch." For a moment, a stranger speaks with her oldest friend's voice, eyes burning like embers in his skull; lit from behind by prophecy or desperation, she can't tell. "And you'll be on it. You _will_ see your child again, Abby."

Helpless against the force of his gaze, Abby nods slowly and the soothsayer drains away until only Thelonious is left, Thelonious with his tired face and tired eyes and trembling hands. He waves one toward the door, fluttering like a wounded bird. "The dropship needs to be ready." She opens her mouth to protest and he talks over the gathering words. " _Abby_. Do a sweep of the room, deliver your orders to medical, and then get to the dropship. I want to be sure the medical supplies are ready."

When she doesn't immediately move, some of that fire sneaks back behind his eyes. "That's an _order_ , Dr. Griffin."

Outside of council meetings, she can't remember the last time Thelonious called her by her title. It lands wrong on her ears and it has to sit wrong on his lips, but his face doesn't soften.

Bobbing her head in sullen agreement, Abby finishes her circuit of the room, aware the whole time of the weight of those new, unsettling eyes on her.

 

* * *

 

Jackson meets her at the doors of the ship before she's done much more than assess where to start, straining to push past the guards and swearing with uncharacteristic viciousness when they won't allow him through without her confirmation.

"I _told_  you, I'm with—Abby!"

Raising a hand to push back a loose hank of hair, Abby sighs and nods to the human blockade holding Jackson back. "He's fine. I asked him to meet me here to go over a few things." He'd been busy when she radioed in with orders—the first being that he needed to stay put, but alerting an already paranoid guard to that will only lead to suspicion and wasted time.

Tugging Jackson by his sleeve behind a crate, she pins him with a disappointed look. "I left instructions that you needed to stay in medical. Who's in—"

Years of anticipating her needs means anticipating her questions, too, and Jackson has the answer out before she can finish it. "I left Tsukimoto in charge." Eyes liquid, he lowers his head, abashed but still defiant. "Abby, I had to see you were all right for myself."

 _I thought you were going to die_. His confession is still too fresh to think this is about anything else, and with a sigh Abby pulls him in for a hug. "Tsukimoto was a good choice, at least."

Laughing, Jackson shelters in the circle of her arms, pulling reluctantly away when Kane's voice comes from just beyond the door, rapid and authoritative as he checks in with each guard one by one.

"It had to be him." Most days Jackson's feelings about Marcus are nothing he can't handle. He would likely handle them the same now, but allowing Jackson to cause him pain feels immeasurably cruel.

"Jackson, not now." When he makes a face, she shakes her head firmly. " _Not now_. Vera was one of the immediate casualties from the blast."

His feelings about the son don't extend to the mother, and Jackson bows his head in instinctive respect for the dead. "All right."

Marcus is waiting just on the right side of the line of guards, surprise crossing his face when both Jackson and Abby emerge from behind the growing stacks of organized supplies.

"Abby. Jackson. I'd thought..."

"I needed Jackson to bring me a few figures from medbay."

Anyone could have done it, and it's a testament to the day that Marcus doesn't question them further. "All right. When you have a moment, I'd like a word."

"She has one now." Jackson speaks up before she answer for them both, oddly muted. "Abby, I'll see you once you're done here." It's a mark of how well he knows her that he waits to have their inevitable argument over how much sleep she needs when she needs it. "Kane. I'm... I'm sorry for your loss."

They trade nods as Jackson makes his way out, guards parting like the Red Sea to give him a path through the packed doorway. Watching him go with a sigh, Abby turns back to the rows upon rows of boxes and gives Marcus an aggrieved look.

"Anyone could do this. I should be back in medical, not here organizing supplies."

"Trust your people. They know how to do their jobs. The injured are in good hands." His own hands are still red, drying in flaky patches. "And we can do nothing for the dead."

If it weren't for the haunted look still in his eyes, it would be easy to think one of those dead hadn't meant everything to him. This is the man who could order the death of his childhood best friend, call for the imprisonment of his daughter and for once, the thought doesn't fill her with disgust. They're the choices he'd been taught are the only ones he can make; in spite of pain, not born from a lack of it.

"Marcus, I'm so sorry." It's like speaking to a piece of stone, with Marcus walled off behind his duty and unresponsive. "Vera was an amazing spirit."

His jacket is rough under her fingers and as she squeezes his arm he softens by degrees, icy control sloughing away until he's just Marcus, a child without parents. His throat clicks on a dry swallow, lips parting soundlessly.

"We need to delay this launch." Before he can respond, Diana's voice breaks in and shatters the moment.

"Why?" Drawing attention to herself so Marcus can draw back into the space that allows him to operate now without exposing his pain to Diana, Abby moves forward. "What happened?"

Marcus steps up beside her once Diana explains, standing shoulder to shoulder, gaze flicking down and losing focus as he recognizes the man on the pad.

Diana's own eyes flash with the triumph she'd worn before the bombing, greedily drinking in the way Marcus' shoulders slope inwards at such a blunt reminder of the emotional cost of the culling.

"What makes you think he did it?" It's the kind of question Marcus would ask if he weren't still transfixed by the man on the screen, and Abby voices it for him.

Diana almost covers her irritation entirely at the implied insult to her information, but there's the slightest snap to her reply. "He confessed."

Marcus' shoulder stiffens against hers, coming to rigid attention. "Where have you been, Diana?"

"Did you hear me, Kane? We have Ridley in custody now, and you want to know where _I've_  been?" Drawing up to her full height, Diana sniffs disdainfully. "I stepped outside to talk to one of my people. I can let you interrogate him instead, if you like."

"Mmm." The smile that pulls Marcus' mouth into a neat upward curve lacks any humor. "No, that's all right." Abby's shoulder feels cold when he pulls away, giving Diana a wide berth despite the limited space on his way to door. "But Diana? Stay where I can find you."

"Where would I _go_?" Shaking her head, Diana watches his exit before turning to Abby with a commiserating sigh. "After what happened, I suppose we can't blame him for being a little off his game."

"No. We can't."

Frowning at her flat refusal to agree with the implication Kane's never at his best, Diana changes tracks with the smooth ease that gained her the chancellorship and eventually, lost it. "I'm glad you're all right, Abby." It's odd to think she means it, but for once there's nothing sharp-edged lurking under the words. "And the children, of course."

Tentatively, Abby nods. "We aren't out of the woods yet, but I have a good team. We'll do everything we can for the wounded."

"Good." The hug Diana gives her is a second too long. She'd done that in childhood, too, just to prove she _could_. Abby tolerates it now as she had then, with stiff acceptance. "Look us, getting sentimental. I'm sure you have your hands full in medical, I hate to keep you here."

It's on the tip of her tongue to correct Diana and point out all the inventory to be done but something holds her back, and Abby nods instead. "I appreciate it."

"Of course. Now, if you'll forgive me, I should check on my people."

Leaving her with one last pat on the arm, Diana heads back into the heart of the Ark. Her departure doesn't take the pall she cast over the room with her, and it takes Abby a long moment to calm her nerves and turn back to the rows and rows of supplies to be recorded.

 

* * *

 

 

Inventory is as soothingly mindless in the belly of the Exodus ship as it is back in medical, and Abby falls into a peaceful lull somewhere between crate six and ten. The clamor from the entrance takes a moment to resolve from chaos into a clearer picture.

"Chancellor on deck!" Expecting Thelonious, Abby's chin jerks up to find Diana, returning at the head of her own army. _Thelonious won't be chancellor forever_.

Bellamy and the gun, Shumway's suicide and the bomb. The council. _Vera_. The stream of wounded filling medbay. The world spins on its edge, realigning into a new world where Diana could put so little value on all those lives.

She wanted the seat back, they'd all known it, but something like _this_  is beyond what they could have expected. Diana was an opponent to be fought, not an enemy to be vanquished.

"How many of our people made it on board?" Diana's question only makes it clear how she'd maneuvered herself into place, and the obvious clues they'd all missed are sickeningly simple to read in retrospect.

Alpha is a soap bubble suspended in mid-air, the other stations the force that keeps them aloft. One hundred children sent down to live or die, and only three offered up from the same station as the seven people who condemned them.

Diana had done nothing to help those children—would have done nothing to help them, even if she had known they needed an advocate—but her rhetoric isn't wrong. The anger and joy reflected in the members of the guard hanging on her every word is the proof of that.

Her actions aren't theirs to claim. Fault for the lives she's ended are Diana's own, but the council created Diana, and they created the people willing to kill and die for her if that meant an equal chance to see the ground.

Pulling back and into a shadowy corner, Abby tries to battle the surge of nausea building in her stomach, tears pricking against the back of her lids as she struggles to keep her breathing quiet and steady. Marcus' promise that the ship had been checked and cleared is a threat now, the end of any hope this can end without discovery.

"T-minus five—"

With a heavy heart, Abby hears the heavy footfalls and shouts that means her last ally is gone, disappeared back into the heart of the Ark without her. At least he'll tell Marcus.

She has to try and bite back a hysterical gasp of laughter when one of Diana's men says as much, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle any sound that might escape.

"And what can they do to stop us? This ship is yours. The planet is _yours_." The skin under Diana's cheekbones is drawn taut, voice rising with each word until each one rings out like a bell. "Jaha and the council meant to keep it from you, but they're not our future— _you_  are. And now it's time to take that future back." A cheer breaks out, and Diana's smile waiting for a lull could put the sun to shame. "You've trusted me this far. Trust me to lead you home."

Abby's pulse races, drawn into the spell despite herself and the cheer is a roar this time, full-throated and uncompromising. Diana surveys the deck with all the grace of a queen, chin high as she sentences the Ark to death under the banner of revolution.

Hands tightening into fists, Abby tries to reconcile the capricious girl with the merciless woman, how she could have warped enough along the way to value her ambition above even this cost. Below the anger and the fear, one thought holds sway: Clarke. Clarke, who needs her and is waiting just below, Clarke who she'll never see again if Diana has her way.

Clarke. Clarke. Clarke. Her heartbeat bears it out, beating in time. _Clarke_.

"T-minus four, ma'am."

Four minutes. With increasing panic, Abby grips the hard plastic beneath her hands, head whipping up at the sound of shouting in the airlock and fists banging against steel and reinforced glass.

Thelonious voice carries even through the barrier and Abby has the barest moment to hope before a hand closes with bruising strength around her elbow, using the grip to yank her out of her hiding place and up against his body. "What do you think you're doing?" Before he spins her around to march her towards Diana, she catches a glimpse of his face and fights against his hold, desperate to land a blow on the man who judged Vera's life less important than his belief in Diana.

Swearing, he thrusts his elbow into her side and grunts in satisfaction when her breath rushes out, making her easier to maneuver the rest of the way. "I found one of Jaha's people, spying on us." She stumbles when he shoves her at Diana, barely catching herself before she lands on her knees on the grating.

"No, Ridley, no. Abby's one of us." Diana pitches her voice for the benefit of the people beyond the door, catching one of Abby's hands in hers. "Aren't you, Abby?"

"Diana, please. Don't do this. Innocent people—"

" _Innocent_?" Playing to the crowd again, Diana releases her and turns to speak directly to Thelonious, seething just beyond the door. "You mean like Jake? Have you forgotten how much innocence meant when it was your husband's life at stake? Your _daughter's_  life?" Unwillingly, Abby follows her gaze to the door and sees Marcus recoil as if struck. "This is our chance to make that better world you wanted. Come with us."

It's a seductive vision. Earth, and Clarke, and an opportunity to forge a world without the injustices of the past. Sensing her yearning, Diana leans close, talking just to her now. "You don't owe Jaha loyalty—he's offered you nothing but pain. Remember what they did to Jake. What they would have done to Clarke." _They_. It's enough to break the spell, because Kane may have carried out the warrants and Thelonious the sentence, but it was _her_  choice that set everything in motion, her mistake that allowed any of it to happen the way it happened. Jake forgave her for that betrayal, but even he could never forgive this. "Think of your daughter."

"I am."

The metal of the lever is cold, rough edge cutting into her palm as she yanks it down with all her strength. She has a split second to look up and lock eyes with Marcus through the blast doors before that small pain is followed by the heat of the shocklash and then dull, quiet nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand we're out! Thank you all so much for your feedback and general awesomeness, see you in another week with chapter five. 
> 
> (If you want a soundtrack to this chapter, may I suggest the song I stuck on repeat while I wrote it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6SprGmHTy4 
> 
> It's a live version of LP's Muddy Waters, and it's gorgeous.)


	5. we are strangers in a land we’re passing through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby take a few more baby steps towards dealing with their shit, Jackson has a begrudging epiphany, and nobody gets laid yet despite teasing feints in that direction.

"Hey, baby."

The service hatch where Diana's men dropped her fell quiet at some point before she'd been alert and able to contribute a few words to whatever conversation passed between the others left behind. She can't blame them for ignoring her return to consciousness; it's too hot and the oxygen available too limited to waste it on conversation, particularly one you've already had before. Silence drags them all into their own private reflections as the hours pass, the heat making it feel agonizingly slow.

Abby's pulse jolts at the interruption, eyes flying open to take in the source.

Jake's face is maddeningly blurry, sliding in and out of focus like he's hidden behind a wall of water, but his voice is as familiar as it ever was. After half a lifetime spent as two halves of one whole, a year hasn't taken that away. Not yet.

"Jake." Coughing, Abby clears her throat. The air burns her chest, and one cough tumbles into another until it becomes a fit. "Jake..."

"I'm right here." He's crouched by her side now, a dark shape in the corner of one eye. "You gotta breathe, Abby. Come on, slower now."

After everything, refusing him isn't an option. Slowly, her breath fades into quiet wheezing and beside her, Jake's head bobs encouragingly. "There you go. Come on, just a little more. Count it out for me, all right? In three, out three."

"In three, out three." She mouths the words along with him, struck by the thought of a dark-eyed little boy standing over his mother's body, breath leaking out of him in pained gulps. _In three, out three. I know it's hard, but you need to count them out for me_. "That's what I told Jackson."

After Mary died. And he'd done it for her, after—

She'd died. Like Jake.

"You're dead. How are you..."

Jake chuckles softly. "That's my girl. You always needed to know _why_ , not just what."

" _Jake_ —"

"I'm not, sweetheart." If she thinks about what it felt like hard enough, she can almost feel his fingers tracing the side of her face. " _You_  are."

A moan of loss leaks out and Jake clucks his tongue, the memory of a hand rapping reprovingly just behind the hinge of her jaw. "Shhh, it's all right. Shhh. Doesn't matter how, does it?" Everything smells like hot metal and the acrid, back of the tongue aftertaste of the shocklash lingers, but beyond it she can almost conjure up grease and solvent and sweat to accompany his presence.

"But I _killed_  you." Made it happen, watched it happen. The face out of the corner of her eye went blue, eyes widened in a permanent state of shock as his warmth met endless cold and was lost in it.

He shakes his head, touch hovering over her shoulder now. "No, Abby. I made a choice. I knew what could happen."

There's some faint, implacably logical corner of her mind that chafes against arguing with a dead man, knows he's nothing more than the result of trauma and heat exhaustion and a guilty conscience, but she's too tired to give it much weight. If these are the last hours left to her, even the illusion of Jake is worth more than waiting for the inevitable alone.

"I thought Thelonious could talk you out of it." They'd never been able to discuss any of this. If there's anything she couldn't forget even while casting the fault at Marcus' feet and still can't forgive, it was that Thelonious didn't give her the chance to _explain_. "I need you to know, Jake. I thought—I thought I'd be able to convince you both to hold off. Just a little bit longer, until we could find a way to make it work."

"Oh, sweetheart. I know." He's not there, she knows it, but the draw of memory is impossible to resist. "I knew then, too."

Even the tears that trickle down her face are hot, cutting trenches in the grim coating her cheeks. "I didn't want any of this to happen. I'm so, so sorry."

"I know." Stronger this time, "Because I know you. And you know me. If you hadn't told Thelonious what I wanted to do, I would have done it and been floated anyway." She stammers out a protest, turning her face towards the wall, but Jake keeps on. "This was always going to happen, Ab. He wasn't going to listen to either of us."

She wants to find an argument. They'd spent so much time together. They'd shared a lifetime, orbiting each other in a comfortable circle that grew with their children and spouses, then shrank again for their lack.

"I wanted to believe..." That Thelonious didn't have it in him to end Jake's life, like he hadn't been willing to end hers. "I thought he'd protect us."

"You trusted your friend."

"And you _died_."

"But you're not going to. Not here. Not now."

She shakes her head, even that small effort draining. "You don't know that. You can't know that, you're not here. Not really."

Phantom lips press against her forehead. "You're going to see our daughter again, Abby."

There's a touch on her knee, solid and real this time and Jake vanishes into nothing. "Hey. Doc, you okay?"

Almost sobbing in disappointment, Abby wills him back and finally nods, rolling her head to the side and squinting until the blur of soot and engine grease and flesh resolves into a face. "Just... thinking out loud. I'm all right."

None of them are all right, but the woman (one of Sinclair's people, her mind supplies) nods. "Just wanted to make sure."

She makes to crawl away again and Abby's hand darts out, taking hold of her sleeve. "Wait." The woman halts, collapsing back into the floor in a semi-controlled sprawl. "What's your name?"

"Anglesey."

"You're in Engineering, aren't you? Were you working on the ship?"

She nods. "On the upper deck. One of her heavies came up behind me and put an elbow to my back then dragged me down here." Mouth twisting in remembered anger, she glares at the door. "Then they had the shockbatons out when they threw the rest of you in."

Abby winces, feeling the ache in her back keenly at the reminder of how they delivered her to the hatch. "Just hold on a little longer, Angslesey. Help's coming."

It's a promise without much steam behind it but Angslesey seems to appreciate the effort, bobbing her head and offering a weak grin. "No question about it, the boss is on the job already. Leave it to the engineers if you want something done right, that's what we like to say in Engineering."

Angslesey's faith in Sinclair's infallibility buoys her own spirits enough that Abby's quiet laugh is genuine. "If anyone find a way, it would be him."

Eyes lighting with the same half-awed affection all Sinclair's people seem to have, she nods. "I've only met one person anywhere near as good as he is, but you had to go and send her to earth."

They share a similarly relieved smile, each in perfect understanding: even if Sinclair pulls off another miracle, what's left of the Ark isn't likely to be liveable for long. Diana's choice was one she made for them all, and Raven's escape down to earth means the kids have someone on their side with the skills they need to grab a foothold in hostile territory and hold it.

"She's a remarkable girl."

Angslesey snorts. "Yeah. Pain in the ass, too, but that was a stunt for the record books. Same on the rush job." She reaches up to scratch at her nose, smearing blood and what looks like oil across an open cut and Abby bites back the insistence that she keep her hands away from her face—it's the least of their worries. "Pretty sure Sinclair was jealous he didn't get to do it himself but you know what it's like, you got people working under you. He's not gonna admit it to me."

There's no point in keeping these kind of secrets. Not now. "You're in luck. You're talking to the only woman who can give you the answer." Pausing long enough for effect the other woman aims a weak kick, boot brushing her calf, Abby finishes with an indulgent flourish. "He was incredibly jealous. I had to promise if I did it again I'd invite him."

"Knew it." Her eyes glint, lips twitching into a smile. "Looking around? Maybe you should've made him do the promising."

Leave it to someone on Sinclair's team to make a joke out of approaching despair. She laughs until Angslesey joins her, unable to stop until they both drag in air in breathless wheezes, waving off the mutterings of alarm of the passengers clustered near the doors.

"I'll take it under advisement."

The lapse into near-hysteria sapped enough energy to make continuing a struggle, and Angslesey touches her brow in an ironic salute before resuming her former position, huddled against the wall like the rest of them.

Like the people in Section 17. The thought strikes with surgical precision, mercilessly cutting away the hope and exposing despair beneath.

Shivering despite the heat, Abby presses her cheek into the wall and prays.

 

* * *

 

"Mom?" Jake's been gone for hours now. Or maybe it's been minutes, or days; time feels like it's spooled out to a final stop. "Mom, wake up."

Sleeping now could mean letting go is the last choice she ever makes. Even knowing that all Abby wants to do is give into the urge, regardless of the consequences. The heat's not around her now but _in_  her, seeping in through her skin and baking her from the inside out, each breath a new wave of fire.

" _Mom_."

"Clarke?" She can't pry her lids open more than a crack to see if her mind has conjured up her semblance along with her voice, but her voice is enough to give just a few moments more.

"Mom, you need to stay awake." She sounds close, close enough to touch and Abby can't make her limbs obey the command to reach out and hold her. " _Mom_. You can't go to sleep right now, you know that."

"Clarke." Abby sighs her name out, remembering her face on the stretcher, slack and trusting. At least she'd gotten that goodbye. A real goodbye. "I'm sorry, honey."

"You need to fight this. You need to stay awake. Mom. _Mom!_ "

Even Clarke can't keep her eyes open for long. "I'm so tired. Clarke—"

If there's an answer, Abby can't hear it.

 

* * *

 

"Abby. _Abby_."

Blinking, Abby struggles to put the world back into order. There's someone hovering over her, pulling her from the morass with a brisk shake. "Jake?"

A brief inhale comes from above her, and the grip on her arms tightens painfully before releasing with an apologetic pat. "Abby, wake up." She knows that voice too, nearly as well as Jake's.

"Marcus?" He's solid, his grip on her face substantial in a way Jake wasn't. Letting out a dry gasp of relief, Abby goes limp in his hold and trusts someone else to carry her burdens. "It's so hot..."

"Shhh, shhh." Marcus somehow warmer than the room as he gathers her up in his arms, forearms covered in small burns.

"Your arms." She struggles to muster up the energy to touch them, hand falling weakly to her side after a few inches, descent slowed by Marcus' long fingers threading through hers, bringing her hand in and holding it protectively against his abdomen.

"Don't matter right now." He cuts smoothly over her concern, squeezing her hands for emphasis. "Abby, you're _alive_." He sounds like a man newly converted, as if her survival is proof of more than Diana's last mercies and his good timing. "I found you."

There's no way to escape the reverence in his voice and Abby murmurs a thank you, relaxing into his embrace and coming back to herself, shaking off the fear and voices of the dead in fits and starts.

"Jackson?" It's the first coherent thought she has and Abby almost can't bring herself to ask, heart squeezing at the thought of having lost another member of her family without a chance to say goodbye.

"Waiting very impatiently for me to bring you back." Her breath whooshes out in a relieved rush, catching on a rusty chuckle when Marcus adds, "and for another chance to glare at me."

"...Thelonious?"

"Alive and well, along with Sinclair and his... apprentice."

The pause before a descriptor for Wick makes Abby snort, breath still labored but slowing gradually to a more regular pattern with the open door allowing new air in.

"Oh, so you've met him."

He's in every third week with some new injury to patch up. All minor, but knowing the odds are good Jackson will be head of medical by the time Wick takes the reins in Engineering has been a comforting one since his first visit to medical.

She nods as well as she can with her cheek pressed firmly to Marcus' chest, ignoring the movement tugs uncomfortably at a scrape. "Once or twice."

It feels good to disregard the larger questions looming and pretend there's nothing left to face beyond this room, to find succor in Marcus' presence and the sheer, overwhelming rush of cheating death.

"They're how I knew anyone might be alive in here. Wick helped me get in." He adds, bemused, "And then he asked if he could have my shoes after I died."

Abby can't help but ask the too-obvious question, struck by the odd feeling of playing straight man to Marcus Kane, who hadn't cracked a smile across the table once in all the time they served on the council together, and only rarely even when they were children. "Well? What did you tell him?"

"They'd be too stylish for for him."

She can hear the sly, proud smile that accompanies his words and an odd, pulsing warmth lodges itself behind her breastbone, low and steady like an ember ready to reignite.

His breath catches when she leans up to press their mouths together, tasting ash and copper from where he'd bitten through one side. It's barely more than a few gentle brushes of lips, but after a moment Marcus stiffens and his eyes dart towards the door and their potential audience.

It's not in her to hold the response against him, and the effort of propping herself up on one hand makes her muscles tremble in a way that could swiftly move from a warning to a problem if Sinclair runs into any problems opening the doors again from the outside. With a regretful sigh Abby relaxes back against Marcus' chest, smiling when he lifts a hand to curve around her shoulder and hold her to him more securely.

"I can't give you any other names. Once I asked if anyone had seen Jackson, I left them to come here."

Her throat tightens, tears pricking at the backs of her lids. He'd thought of Jackson—of her, knew exactly what she'd need to hear to find some peace. Before asking about anyone he might want to find, before he could have known Diana hadn't simply killed her, he'd thought to make sure that if Jackson had been found he could tell her.

Unbidden, that previously doused ember in her chest burns a little brighter. "To come find me."

He stills and Abby would give anything to see his face. Either he's changed irrevocably or she has, because not being able to tell what he's thinking is a frustration where it used to be a fact of life.

"To come find you," he finally agrees, gruff, arm tightening around her.

"Marcus..." He'd taken it on faith that she'd be alive. That _anyone_  would be. He'd risked his life on nothing but hope and the need to do whatever he could for their people. "Thank you."

Nosing a sweaty hank of hair aside, he brushes his lips against her forehead. "Shhh. Just rest, Abby. I'll wake you when Sinclair arrives."

"I can't just—"

"You can," he counters. "And you should." Voice softening, he kisses her hairline. "Just take the chance and rest. You'll have more than enough work to do soon."

He's right, and now that the adrenaline of rescue has worn off she can barely keep her eyes open.

"You'll wake me up?"

"I promise."

 

* * *

 

Marcus is good to his word. Sinclair's team finds them and he rouses her, helping her up and making sure she can stand on her own two feet, but it barely matters. A taste of sleep was enough to remind her body exactly how much more rest is needed, and the walk to medical passes in a barely-conscious stream of lights and silver floors and her own boots as she stumbles forward and leans on Marcus, trusting him to steer both their feet in the right direction.

" _Abby_!" Jackson's smile nearly splits his face, and it encompasses them both as he opens his arms to hold her as Marcus lets go with palpable reluctance. "Thank God. I thought..."

His pain calls to her now as it did when they first met, and she shushes him, hand coming up to rest on his shoulder as she shakes off the worst remnants of her half-awake state. "I'm still here." Turning her head to take in Marcus, Abby smiles. "We all are."

Jackson's brow creases as his head swivels between them, the glare Marcus joked about manifesting.

"I need to take a look at Abby now." It's a clear hint to leave, and Marcus takes it.

"Then I'll just..." He gestures to the door, stopping just before the threshold to look back, gaze drawn to her like a lodestone. "I'll be outside, after."

If it weren't for Jackson's ever-darkening expression she'd insist he stay and get his own minor injuries look at, but with medical in shambles and higher risk patients still left waiting, the kit in her quarters will be more than enough to handle it herself, once she gets the chance. Smiling encouragingly, she nods. "I won't be long."

To Jackson's credit, he manages not to say anything until he's almost through with the exam.

"Just the once, huh?"

It's better than an immediate judgment. Rolling her eyes, Abby holds out an arm so he can clean one of the larger cuts on her arm. "What I do in my personal life is still my business and not yours, but yes. Just the once."

"Hmph." He sounds disbelieving but his hands are gentle as they probe at the edges of the wound, frowning. "Hold on, I think you've got a piece of whatever it was that made this inside there. Let me grab..."

After so many years spent in each other's constant company, it's easy to rely on a system of half-spoken plans, trusting the meaning will come across without words. The rest of the sentence isn't needed.

A wave of gratitude swamps her, leaving a lump in her throat. Jackson's loyalty is so absolute it can be easy to take for granted, as much a given as gravity or oxygen and most noticeable when threatened with its lack. In some ways he's her legacy just as much as Clarke is.

When he turns back Abby holds her arms out wordlessly. He'll try and pretend he's all right because it's what he does, but ignoring the impact of her actions on the people who matter most is a mistake she'd rather not make again.

"Come here."

The way he crumples into her and holds on tight once he has permission makes it obvious he needed the reassurance, and Abby brings a hand up to rub one shoulder comfortingly. "I know. But I'm here now, and so are you. We're both all right."

They stand silently like that until she can feel Jackson relax, the horrible tension bleeding off and with a last deep breath he steps away, drawing back up to his full height. "Okay, hold out your arm again."

Years spent learning to divorce people from their component parts erased any squeamishness she might have about the same applied to her own body, and she watches Jackson's deft hand at extraction with approval, unbothered as fresh crimson leaks down her arm in thin rivulets.

"Got it." Pulling out a fine metal shard the length of a fingernail, Jackson holds it up to the light to examine it then drops it on the tray where it lands with an incongruously cheerful tink. "You know, I think we talked about how you weren't going to do this again."

Wincing a little at the last tug, Abby shakes her head and sighs as Jackson cleans the wound a second time, letting it pass without comment. Inventory won't be a priority in the near future, and it might make him feel better. "You'd have to talk to Diana about it this time, not me."

His back is to her, but the way his body stiffens is impossible to miss. "It's hard to ask a dead woman anything."

"...she's dead?" Putting off thinking about the probable consequences of taking the Exodus ship on the ones left behind is a matter of necessity if she wants to keep moving forward. The consequences for Diana's people hadn't even occurred to her to put off thinking about.

"Sinclair said the ship went down too fast. No survivors." There's a hard edge she's never heard from him before in the recitation. It's jarring, like a discordant note in a well-loved song. Noticing her lack of reaction, he takes a step closer, staring at her like she's sprouted a second head. "Abby, she tried to _kill_  you."

"No, she put me in a situation where there was a good chance I'd die."

"There's a _difference_?"

"To Diana there would have been." Diana's death is well-deserved, if any death can said to be deserved. But Abby can't be happy about it, not when it's one more piece of her life carved away and she can picture the woman Diana might have been if power hadn't mattered more than anything else.

"Then she tried to kill the chancellor. She _did_  kill those people at the pageant. She could have killed all of us." Incredulous, he shakes his head. "Why are you defending her?"

"I'm not." He gives her a pointed look. "I'm _not_ , Jackson. But she was my friend, once. And I've known her all my life. "

It's obvious he wants to argue the point, but after taking a fortifying breath he releases it and slumps, looking all at once very young and older than he should. "Fine. It doesn't matter. I need to get you somewhere to sleep so I can look in our other patients."

"I can't sleep here." It's a mark of how much that sleep is needed that she accepts the banishment without protest.

Jackson rolls his eyes, looking a little more like himself. "That much is obvious. You should be in your quarters." He pauses, looking a little queasy. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you should ask Kane to take you there."

He looks offended at the laugh she lets out, but it feels so good to move beyond thoughts of Diana and what she'd cost them all Abby doesn't try to stifle it. "Are you sure about that? You don't look sure."

"I'm not sure at all." Making a face, he amends, "Or I am, and that's not what I'm sure about."

Try as she might, Abby can't follow his train of thought. "Which means?"

"I need to be here." Jackson lifts one shoulder, looking like he can't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "And he saved your life..."

"So he can be trusted to walk me home?"

"Something like that."

Marcus' head jerks up like a bloodhound on the scent when they exit the exam room. "She's all right?"

"I'm fine." Abby's tone is warning. Protectiveness is only tolerable so far, and asking Jackson to report when she's right there is beyond the line.

"Good." His gaze darts back to Jackson, pleading for an unbiased opinion.

"She's fine." Jackson dodges the elbow she aims at his side, nudging her forward with the same motion. "And she needs someone to help her back to her room."

For one breathless moment Marcus looks uncomprehending and she's almost sure he'll ask if they want him to call a member of the guard to do it. Then the full weight of the question hits him and his face goes slack with surprise, eyes wide.

"I'd—" He clears his throat, standing straighter and clasping his hands behind his back in parade rest. "I'll take her."

"Good. She needs _sleep_." Jackson isn't even trying to be subtle, and this time he can't dodge her elbow. Posturing doesn't get quite as lenient a view as protectiveness.

Thinking better of answering in kind after a look at Abby's face, Marcus just nods seriously. "I'll get her there safely."

"I'll hold you to that." Making a pained face, Jackson gestures to the door. "I have patients to see. Abby, I'll see you in the morning? _Late_  in the morning."

"Good night, Jackson. Get some sleep yourself, let someone else take charge for at least an hour or two."

"If I can—"

" _Jackson_ —"

"If I can."

It's the same argument she'd make and Abby lets it drop with reluctant pride, crossing the rest of the distance between them so she can lean on Marcus' arm. "Fine. But when I get back, we're having this conversation again."

"Good night, Abby." His pause is a shade too long to feel completely natural, but at least he sounds sincere when he tacks on, "Kane."

"Jackson." She can read the faint shock beneath Marcus' polite nod. Somewhere along the line each twitch of his jaw became a story she learned to translate but Jackson just nods back, courtesies satisfied. He's back inside before they even turn the corner.

"I thought I was going to die." It's the fear she couldn't give voice while Jackson still hovered, but Marcus doesn't flinch from it. Instead, he nods once, hair falling into his eyes. "Thank you."

"I had similar worries, but then Wick told us about the locked hatch and I..." he starts, then cuts himself off with a frustrated huff. "I knew you had to be alive." The look he gives her is baffled, like he doesn't understand himself why he was sure. "That I'd find you."

There's no way to answer that well and Abby hums an affirmative, leaning her head against his shoulder. The rest of the walk back is quiet, but Marcus keeps his arm curled around her side protectively the whole time, only letting go so she can punch in the code to let them both in.

"Here we are again."

The new Marcus' flashes of humor are still novel, but at the moment there's no joke that could convince her to waste time on small talk now that she's within shouting distance of getting to sleep without interruption or fear. Rolling her eyes, Abby makes a beeline for the door leading to the bedroom. "Joke later. Bed now."

When he doesn't follow her in, she sighs and pitches her voice a little louder. "I can't have a conversation with you if you're in there, and I'm too tired to be anywhere but in here."

He crosses the threshold like a man expecting heavy punishment for a wrong step. It might be endearing if she weren't so tired, but Abby can barely summon up the energy to do much more than keep putting one foot in front of the other.

"Hold on, I'll get changed."

A shower would be better for the sheets and her peace of mind, but the idea of that much effort brings tears to her eyes. Splashing some water on her face and wearing clean pajamas is close enough to being clean to satisfy the bare minimum of effort.

The bedroom is stripped of most of the things that might remind her of Jake; each square inch holds a memory for her, but the only blatant one for Marcus is their wedding picture, in the center of a small cluster of photos on her dresser.

Marcus has it in his hand when she exits the bathroom. She doesn't have to ask, his face tells the whole story. Prying it gently from him, she sets it back down.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop."

He scoffs hollowly. "You don't know what I'm thinking."

Sliding into bed, Abby sighs. "No, but I know it's nothing good and that I need to _sleep_."

Face shuttered, he jerks his head in a firm nod like she's just confirmed something for him. "Understood. Good night, Abby."

He doesn't understand at all. "Marcus?" He pauses midway to the door, face carefully blank like he doesn't dare hope. "Stay?"

All that careful neutrality disintegrates like wet paper, leaving behind raw emotion. "I—yes. If you want me here."

It's an inelegant acceptance and entirely Marcus. Abby nods, touching the empty bed next to her. "There's enough room for two." He freezes like a mouse under the paw of a cat and she laughs, too tired to take offense. "Just to sleep, Marcus. The couch isn't big enough, and you'll freeze on the the floor."

He nods, slowly, eyes glued to the bed. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

Kicking off his boots and pants he slides under the covers, maintaining a respectful distance between them.

Heaving a sigh, Abby rolls to one side and grabs his arm, slinging it over her middle and holding it in place as she rolls back so he has to follow her.

They're both filthy and tired, covered in the aftermath of a day spent in the the ruins of what was supposed to be a celebration but Marcus is warm beside her and they're both _alive_.

"Don't overthink it." She breathes the words into his mouth, free hand coming up to stroke the hair tickling her cheeks back.

There's no urgency to his kiss, just lazy pleasure and the comfort of sharing affection with someone else. That she hasn't shared a bed with anyone since Jake is a thought to be examined tomorrow, when she has enough room to spare for guilt. For now she gluts herself on the way Marcus touches her with hesitant tenderness, stroking along her sides and chancing bolder touches along her spine and lower back before redirecting back to safe ground.

Finally Abby pulls back, leaning her forehead against his and sighing with regret. "We need sleep."

His lips curve into a pleased smile. "You said that earlier."

"I meant it then, too." With one last kiss she settles into the bed and adjusts the pillow, Marcus' arm still firmly in place. It feels oddly natural, his body curving perfectly around her own as he makes himself more comfortable.

"Good night, Abby."

They're simple words, ones he's said before, but the way he says them now makes her pulse flutter in a way that feels like a warning. "Good night, Marcus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: I'm working on my Kabby Halloween exchange fic this month so the next two updates might be a little slow, but: almost there, y'all! Five down, two to go.


	6. my house stands at the edge of glory, steady as the seasons change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby show stunning emotional maturity, the secondary characters get some more time, and yes: people finally get laid.

There's a part of her that expects sleeping with someone else to be difficult after so long readjusting to sleeping alone. Someone _new_ , no less. At the very least, nerves should have played into it and made the night restless, her subconscious reacting to the unfamiliar body beside her.

Instead, it's the kind of sleep she hasn't experienced since the night the man making that sleep so peaceful carried out the orders to take her husband and daughter away.

He's stroking his hand down her side as she wakes, careful sweeps like he's attempting to etch in his touch like water slowly eroding stone, carving new channels to extend a river's boundaries. His hand stills as he registers the difference, but when she just murmurs encouragingly and stretches the motion resumes. The sheets are somewhere around her ankles— _their_ ankles, but if he's cold it hadn't been enough to make him retrieve them after she'd kicked them off.

Marcus' hand slows to a stop over her hip, thumb brushing across the strip of bare skin exposed by her rucked her shirt and her breath catches as she pushes into his hand in instinctive encouragement.

"Morning." His voice is low, soft around the edges with sleep.

"Morning." Propping her head on her arm, Abby returns his scrutiny. Here's yet another side of Marcus to add to the growing list; bare-chested, the barest hints of a beard starting to grow in, and the hair not clinging in sticky whorls to his forehead starting to curl into a halo around his head.

Shifting self-consciously, he looks down at himself, trying to identify what's caught her attention. "What is it?"

"Your hair." She pushes back the strands falling in his eyes. "I like it better like this." He raises an eyebrow in question and she laughs, fingering the beginnings of grey near his temples. "It was so stiff before."

"I didn't know you had an opinion on my hair."

"Marcus, if I recall correctly, you were the one who told me I have opinions about everything." Including the things he'd thought she knew nothing about—and she'd assumed the same of him, but here they both are confronting the people hidden behind the paper tigers they'd built up to pit against each other.

His eyes search her own, trying to find a barb behind the reminder. Finding none, his lips stretch into a hesitant smile. "I seem to remember saying something like that, yes." Gaining confidence when she just rolls her eyes in good-natured remembrance of a slight she'd spent weeks railing about to Jackson, he raises an eyebrow in mock challenge. "Are you saying I'm wrong?"

"I'm saying most people have the good sense not to mention it to the woman responsible for their basic healthcare."

His chuckle is low, vibrating against her skin when he leans forward and buries his face in her hair, beginnings of a beard rustling lightly as it rasps over her hairline. "You're right, it was incredibly foolish of me."

"Oh, incredibly."

He laughs again, rich and pleased, rubbing his chin against her forehead affectionately before bringing their faces even again and pressing a soft kiss against the corner of her mouth. "I'll have to do something about it, then." He looks a little impressed with his own daring and a heated surety curls around the edges of his voice. "Let me make it up to you."

Suddenly wordless, she nods.

His beard scratches over her cheek, her jaw, prickling in bursts of sensation and she shifts closer, one hand coming up to stroke the hair at the nape of his neck. Humming appreciatively he rolls his cheek into her neck, beard leaving a patch of red skin in its wake. She shudders, clutching his head tighter and he does it again, and again, until her breathing comes in faint gasps and the grip she has on his hair tightens past the point of comfort.

Still he doesn't stop, basking in her reactions and rumbling with satisfaction in the back of his throat when he discovers a reaction he hasn't dragged out of her before now.

" _Marcus_."

He echoes her groan, sucking a stinging kiss into the side of her neck and then another, gentler kiss in apology. "I've been thinking about this for the last two weeks." His breath comes out in hot puffs, moistening the skin it touches. "Remembering that night. Wanting to touch you again."

Maybe it's ridiculous to feel exposed now. A night spent sleeping chastely next to each other and a few kisses shouldn't feel momentous, not when they'd done considerably more than sleep on the floor just a room away.

Then again, that had been impulsive and for all his faults, the hurts Marcus inflicted had never been physical—he would have floated her, but he's not the kind of man she needs to fear with her body. She'd been safer in that hour than she would have been alone.

Sharing a bed is different. There's a vulnerability to sleep missing from sex, an implicit expression of the kind of trust that means this is so much more than indulging in physical comfort on the eve of their final act.

Unaware of the dark turn of her thoughts, the muscles in Marcus' arms cord as he levers himself up and over her, holding his weight on one elbow so he can give her enough space to breathe and himself enough space to press a palm on her abdomen, wide and hot and nudging at the edge of her sleep pants.

"Is this all right?"

Breathless, she nods. "More than."

There's not enough time to savor the way his hand is large enough to span the entirety of her lower belly before he's moving down to where she most wants his touch, one long finger separating her labia and delving further, hissing in appreciation when he finds her already wet and swollen. He leans their foreheads together, stealing her mouth in a greedy kiss when she moans and wraps an arm around his shoulders, trying her best to pull him down so she can feel the full weight of his body.

" _Christ_ , Abby."

Her reply is lost in the frantic beeping of both their tablets, left in the other room but no less disruptive for it.

His disappointed groan overlaps with her own, hand stilling until he's cupping her gently, torn between continuing and the unending drone of the real world from outside their brief respite.

"We should stop." The words sound dragged from him, but their truth is unavoidable. Thelonious said there would be a meeting in the morning, and now it's morning.

"I know." Stifling a sigh as he pulls his hand back, Abby watches him bring it up to his mouth and clean it absent-mindedly. The sight of it hits her like the shocklash had, and his breath whooshes out in a surprised rush as she rolls back across the bed and kisses him, chasing the faint tang still on his tongue.

He's still leaning back, shell-shocked, when she rises. "Go see what it is? I'll get dressed." And get her home kit, but sometimes the trick with Marcus is fighting the battle when she _needs_ to and not a moment before.

He blinks like a man coming out of anesthesia, then again. "Right. I'll just..." Gesturing vaguely towards the door, he stumbles up and out and she takes a moment to luxuriate in the simple, heady power; Marcus wants her.

Rising before the thought can progress into what that might mean, Abby makes token attempts at making herself presentable, the skin of her neck still hot to the touch where he'd left it red.

His own eyes catch and stick on her neck when she emerges, taking an involuntary half a step forward before catching himself and halting, eyes still on the incontrovertible evidence of what they'd done.

"We ought to..." he starts, reluctantly, but Abby shakes her head.

"It can wait. I want to take a look at your arms." His arms do need tending, but it's hardly a good enough reason to delay without the unspoken corollary; the meeting is only a formality. They both know what Thelonious has to say: there won't be a last minute solution or a patchwork miracle waiting, just an acceptance of the end. Once they leave, there's no veil of forced ignorance to hide behind. "A shower would be useful."

"Now, _that_ I know we don't have time for. And you know, I'm not even sure they're working." A touch of humor lightens the severity of his frown, and he capitulates without further argument. "All right. He said we had a little under half an hour until the station leaders arrive."

"More than enough time to take care of these." The burns aren't bad, but Abby treats each one with the kind of careful attention she'd lavish on a patient in triage. These small hurts are the last gatekeeper between their bubble of peace and the world outside, where Thelonious and his meeting wait. Once they're taken care of there are no more excuses to avoid the truth.

Sensing her need for quiet, he doesn't attempt conversation as she works, just allows her to move his limbs as she needs and breathes, deep and calming and so steady her own falls in line, keeping the stomach-turning dread at bay a little while longer. "Marcus?"

"Yes?"

Taking up one of his hands in hers, she presses a soft kiss to the back before continuing with her work. "I'm glad you stayed."

His breath stutters and stops, body going still. "Abby." It's his turn to grab her hands, stilling their progress in applying burn gel to the last and least significant of his brushes with heated metal in his quest to find her. "Abby, look at me."

When she does, his eyes are tender but still, there's passion there; banked, but ready to reignite if given half a chance.

His lips ghost over hers, offering a benediction. "I am, too."

 

* * *

 

Thelonious' eyes narrow when they arrive together. There's a visible winding of gears as he takes the available evidence and arrives at the right conclusion.

For a moment, he's the Thelonious of their youth. It might take her level of familiarity to spot it, but that terrible fire growing inside is banked as the skin around his eyes crinkles in amusement, one eyebrow inching up when Marcus hurries to take his seat at the table without greeting him.

"The others will be here in a moment. Good to see you both made it on time." His voice is rich with amusement, and Abby shoots him a reproving look, looking to Marcus to gauge his reaction and being met with the top of his head and a determinedly blank mask.

He's staring at the table as if it holds all the secrets of the universe, refusing to meet either of their eyes. It's not that she's aching to explain why they arrived together and she knows enough about Marcus to understand the acute pain seeming impropriety will cause him. The complete shutdown needles at her, nonetheless.

Hint of a smile wiped away as if it had never been there, Thelonious nods to the chair on his left, magnanimous as any king offering pardon to a formerly treasonous courtier.

It's a tempting offer; there's no real heft to it, but the loss of the pin still sits uncomfortably. A shadow reappointment at the end of it all might soothe the remaining hurts. On the other hand, there's no other benefit and something to risk in accepting.

Lifting a hand, she meets his eyes and touches the empty spot on her collar where the pin once sat, shaking her head with a bittersweet smile. He'd taken her place at that table away, and pretending otherwise because he wants the optics of the two surviving council members standing by his side isn't a concession she can grant. Not now, when sitting beside him would put her reaction on full display.

The door saves her from the rebuke waiting on the other side of Thelonious' long, indrawn breath at the rejection and Abby takes a spot near the wall, the room slowly filling up around her.

Thelonious' speech is the concession she expected; he'd always been good at sounding a graceful retreat, and the vision he paints is one of a noble end to a noble effort, not the mad scramblings of a people constantly at the edge of disaster. His Ark is they've chosen to die for, and proudly.

"Fifty one hours." Knowing isn't _knowing_ , as it turns out. The blunt acknowledgment of their fates—of how long it will take that fate to arrive—makes her head spin, the air in the room suddenly too thin to do much good.

Fifty one hours. Less than three days, and then it's over. There won't be anything to do but wait, and plan where and how to greet the end.

He continues, but his words come from far away, tinny and almost incomprehensible. Fifty one hours. Two days, and then Clarke is gone forever. Her chest aches like it's been rearranged and stitched back together wrong, a pathetic facsimile of what it's meant to be.

"—by?"

Thelonious' voice breaks through and she has to search for an answer to a question barely heard, settling on a terse nod and avoiding Thelonious' gaze, bypassing looking at Marcus entirely. If she sees pity in his face she won't be able to stand it. She'll fall apart here and now.

"Fine." Stretching her lips into a smile that looks more like the grimace of a funeral mask, she takes one step back, then another, easing towards the door and sanctuary. "I have a patient. Critical, from the blast." She has a line of patients, and in fifty one hours she won't have a single patient ever again. "I need to go."

If either of them want to stop her, they can't get the words out fast enough to catch her, and Abby breaks into a near jog once the door shuts behind her, all her attention focused on the simple goal of putting one foot in front of another and making it to medical without exposing what having that last shred of hope taken away has done.

 

* * *

 

 

"Dr. Griffin." Pike's exiting medical as she enters, and he raises a hand in greeting before looking down and grimacing at the blood caked on in patches. "Sorry, I haven't had much of a chance to wash up."

Conversation is the last thing she wants, but there's no way to avoid it without wasting time putting it off. They're all striding towards the same end, and if what Pike wants to do with his last moments is talk to her she can spare a moment or two before drawing back to the safe haven of her operating room and Jackson's quiet understanding.

Forcing her lips into something close to a smile and taking a long look at the sunken shadows under his eyes, Abby shakes her head. "It looks like you haven't had much of a chance to do anything."

"Been a busy two days." His nonchalance rings hollow, good cheer not reaching his eyes. "Heard the news. Met my station rep on the the way over here, she let me know so I could head over here while she broke it to the rest of Farm Station."

There's no need to ask for elaboration. "I just found out myself." There's no need to _talk_ about the news, either, and all she wants to do is lose herself in the singleminded focus medical requires. "Did you want to ask me something?"

"Nah, I got what I needed to done." Jerking his chin back inside, he sighs, a look of fond exasperation crossing his face. "Gillmer's—ah, Shawn Gillmer, he's still in there getting patched up. I wanted to give him the news before somebody else did. He got a couple dents trying to clear a pathway back into Farm Station by himself, damn fool." Off her look, Pike shakes his head. "Nothing that can't be fixed with a couple stitches. I've known the man a long time. He's got a hard head and your people are looking after him. He'll be fine."

Until he's not. He doesn't need to say the words. They linger like a wraith, shadowing each of their steps and reminding them: one less. One less, one less, nearly there now. Just a little bit longer.

Clearing his throat, Pike shifts his weight and looks down the hall, losing the easy confidence of a man well-aware of his own presence. "Look, maybe this isn't my place to say anything, but... she's going to be all right."

The words feel like he's landed a body blow. Clarke. He means Clarke, Clarke who she can't help. Can't even see one last time.

Abby wets her lips, pulse thundering in her ears. "I don't..." Trailing off, she swallows hard and pretends incomprehension, longing to push past him and disappear into problems she can do anything about in the time she has left.

"Abby." Pike rubs a hand absently over the back of his head, pity softening his features. "Clarke's going to be all right."

She shakes her head as if the refusal of his words can turn them back to their source and force him to unsay them.

Taking her silence as a chance to push harder, he steps closer. "She took in everything I could teach her. She's a sharp kid, she'll be all right." He's painfully earnest and it takes all her strength not to howl at him, because he doesn't _know that_. He can't. None of them can.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Abby offers a stiff nod. "Thank you, Charles. I do appreciate it." Sincerity is all she can offer; warmth is a bridge too far, and she draws up to her full height and inclines her head towards the hall. "But you're right, it isn't your place to say it."

He accepts the gentle rebuke with a sigh, bobbing his head in apology. "Fair enough. I thought it might be worth hearing." It looks like there's more he wants to add, but he thinks better of it and takes a respectful step back. "Sorry to bother you, Doctor Griffin. I'll let you get back to work."

 

* * *

 

 _She'll be all right_. The words repeat like a bad audio feed, looping in her head in Pike's low voice until they're unavoidable and she scrubs up just to avoid hearing them.

It's a risk, but Jackson doesn't fight her on the call to attempt surgery again. Her field of vision closes to blonde hair and eyes she's sure are blue behind closed lids and then _red_ , so much of it that it blots out those hair and eyes until it's the only thing she can see.

If she can just save this one. If she can save her, maybe she can believe someone else will be able to save Clarke.

"Abby." Jackson's voice breaks through the fog, accompanied by the shrill drone of monitors delivering the same sobering message. "Abby, she's not going to make it. Opening her up again was the wrong call."

"It's the only way to save her." It _was_ the only way, even if there's a gasp or two of life left to cling to. Even denial can't break the ironclad surety of years of practice; her patient is lost and she knows it.

"Save her? For what? She'd just die in two days, with the rest of us." The monitors drone has grown into a shriek, and Jackson's attempt at reason blends into the cacophony. "She's crashing."

"No. No, I won't accept that." There's one last syringe of epinephrine left on the tray and Abby grabs it, spitefully remembering Thelonious' lift on rations. If the food can be shared then she can damn well use what precious little supplies she has left on any patient she wants. "Go, get me another amp of epi while I start CPR."

Jackson reluctantly follows her orders but Abby only has eyes for the girl on the table, begging the blue tinge to her face to fade back to healthy pink with each compression. The seconds tick by without Jackson handing her another syringe, and the blue grows richer, lining the edges of her lips. "Jackson, the epi."

"We can't, Abby."

"Rationing is _over_ , Jackson, now give me the goddamn epinephrine." They've argued before, but she's never had cause to yell at him. Now she could strangle him for trying to manage her when all she wants to do is change something for the better, even just for two days.

He stands firm in the face of her desperation, shaking his head sadly. "We're _out_ , Abby. That was the last of it."

"No. _No_." Pushing again, Abby wills the body on the table to be a girl again. "Breathe. Come on, I need you to breathe. Please."

Jackson shuts off the monitors, and silence swallows the operating room whole in their wake. "There's nothing else to do here. You have to let her go."

The finality in his voice strips away her last defense. Abby staggers backwards, sucking in a shuddering breath as one bloody hand flies up to rest over her heart, where the organ feels like it's trying to tear itself from her breast.

"I failed." Helpless, angry tears sting at her lids and she doesn't bother to brush them away, looking up at Jackson as the first one falls. "I _failed_."

Not just the little girl caught up in the crossfire of Diana's need to be remembered, but her daughter. She'd fought so hard to see Clarke again, kept going on the steam of that promise, and now there's nothing left to hold her together.

"You did everything you could." Jackson's belief in her shines through his eyes, in the earnest way he refuses to accept that she could be anything but admirable and worth championing. "You always do."

"She'll hate me forever, now." There's a deadened tone to her voice that rattles even Abby herself, but she can't help the words from spilling out now that the dam's been breached, eyes glued to the cold, still form on the operating table. Jackson notices her line of sight and pulls the sheet up, but her sweet, rounded baby face is tattooed on the back of her eyelids. "She thinks I knew that Jake—I can't earn her forgiveness, now. Can't make it right." Her next breath comes out in half-stifled sob. "Can't protect her."

"No, hey. No." Her head bumps against Jackson's sternum in his rush to pull her in and offer comfort, attempting to quiet her like she'd done for him. "Clarke doesn't hate you, Abby. She's... she's just stubborn." He gives her a little shake. "Like her mother. You gave her that, Abby. There's a piece of you keeping her alive down there. That's how you protect her now."

Burying her face in his chest, she draws in deep breaths, Jackson's familiar smell as comforting as his words. Finally, she laughs, quiet and wet but honest. "When did you get so smart?"

"I had a pretty good example to follow." He pauses, uncertain. "Abby?"

"Mmm?"

"I don't want to die." That simple confession is enough to shake off the gloom for now, his need calling to her best self just as her need called to his.

"Oh, sweetheart. I know." It's hard to shelter a man nearly a foot taller than you with your body, but Abby does her best to try as Jackson burrows into her embrace. "I know. I don't either." Stroking his back comfortingly, Abby remembers that constantly underfoot little boy and the seeds of this man, already obvious in his desire to learn. To _help_ people. "I wish I could have spared you this." If only she'd thought to send him down with Raven, or put the pieces together about Diana before she'd been able to take the Exodus ship.

His shoulders square, spine drawing into a proud line as Jackson shakes his head. "If you're here, this is where I want to be to. And hey, if the kids make it... at least some of us will, right?"

"Right." Drawing in a bracing breath, she gives him one last, tight squeeze and steps away, doing her best to pretend they're both ready for what's coming. "Now, you should go. Thelonious lifted rationing, and I'm sure the same lenience goes for contraband." He might not have considered that side effect, but what little liquor they have left is bound to flow easily through the corridors of the Ark tonight. "You might as well take the chance to find out what it's like to really be full. Have a drink... maybe bring someone home?"

That makes him laugh, all-out in a way she hasn't heard since the day Marcus nearly floated her. "I'll see what I can do. You too, okay? Don't stay here too long alone. You know how it gets." They both understand the kind of melancholy too much time to think about everything the operating room has seen. "And you need to eat, too. They said you didn't stop in the mess last night or this morning, so don't tell me you did." She gives him a mildly reproving look, and Jackson shrugs unrepentantly. "Don't act like you haven't done the same thing."

She has, more than once. Wrinkling her nose, Abby points to the door. "Go. Eat, drink. Be merry." _For tomorrow, we die_. Either Jackson doesn't know the rest or is choosing to ignore her turn towards the macabre, because he laughs and sketches a sloppy salute.

"I can do that, I think." His lips twitch, slyly. "You should, too. Maybe David Miller could use a little company..."

" _Jackson_ , I swear, if you don't leave..."

Laughing, he takes off his scrubs and after a quick frown of consideration, leaves them in a pile on the counter before washing his hands. "All right, I'm gone."

Pausing by the door, he turns back to look at her, serious again. "Abby?"

Quashing the immediate concern, she takes a step forward. "Yes?"

"I love you."

Being a mother is the most peculiar blend of pain and joy. She's known it since the day Clarke first quickened inside her, but Jackson is as much her child in his own way, and his simple affection wraps a cord around her heart, tugging her towards him until she can wrap her arms around him and thank him for the privilege in the best way she knows how.

"I'm so proud of the man you've become, Jackson. So proud." Releasing him with a pat to the back, she uses the contact to shove him gently back towards the door. "I love you too. Now, get out of here before I have to chase you out. Go."

His parting smile is sweet but it isn't enough to paper over the hurt waiting to spring back up, and she strips her scrubs off and sags back against the wall once he's gone, bloody hands pressed to her thighs as she leans over and forces her breath into a three count rhythm.

Her tablet chimes once, breaking her concentration. Then again, and then again and again until she crosses to the sink and washes her hands and splashes water on her face, the beeping continuing incessantly until she finally answers it.

Sinclair's face is still dirty from the aftermath of the explosions, sweat beading at his temples. "You need to come help me."

Panic seizes her, immediate and gnawing. "Is everything all right? I _told_ you, if there were any lingering problems with your breathing—"

" _Abby_." His voice is still quiet, but it sharpens in annoyance. "It's not a medical issue."

"Then what is it?"

The floor and ceiling tilt in a dizzying rush and Abby blinks hard against sudden vertigo, looking away as Sinclair jerks his pad violently to the left to show her the room beyond his hidden corner.

Marcus is hunched protectively over a console, fingers flying across the surface like a man possessed.

Another quick flip of perspective and Sinclair is back in frame, lips set in a stern line. "He's been here since Jaha's announcement."

"...that was hours ago."

"I know." Sinclair's voice could strip paint, but his ire is directed away from the screen and towards the man occupying the center of the room. "And at this point I'd let him have the run of the place with my blessing, but he won't let _me_ leave. I've run every simulation he asked for, and now he's telling me to run them all again."

Of course he is. He'd been willing to condemn three hundred souls to the dark, if that meant two thousand more could survive to carry the burden for them. His own time is nothing compared to that, and Sinclair is so intrinsic to the Ark's functionality that it can be easy to forget he has a life decoupled from his job.

"I want to go home, Abby. I want to be with my wife." Unknowingly, he echoes her thoughts, as close to pleading as she's ever heard him. "Please... I need to have this time with her. You understand that."

If Jake were alive, and if he wasn't at that console right by Marcus' side...

Abby nods, blinking back tears and trying not break her own heart picturing a world where they'd all made different choices in too much detail. "I'll be right there."

" _Thank you_."

 

* * *

 

Marcus is still curled over the panel, too wrapped up in whatever he's reading to notice her entrance.

Sinclair is waiting by the door, and he follows her line of sight and sighs, looking at Marcus with more understanding now that she's here to put a stop to his press-gang attempts.

"Has he done anything else but that?"

Sinclair arches a brow, arms crossed over his chest. "Other than bark orders?"

Abby gives him a quick, surprised look. His bite, usually sanded down or hidden behind an ostensibly respectful front when it comes to the chain of command, is on full display tonight.

Making a face, Sinclair sighs and lets his arms drop. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

"Go home, Sinclair. I'll take care of this."

"Thank you." Pausing, he leans forward and wraps an arm around her shoulders, smelling so much like Jake after a long day that she can almost hear him again, like she had in the hatch. "I'll see you later, Abby."

Sneaking up behind Marcus is simply a matter of walking, he's so absorbed in the calculations arrayed in front of him. He doesn't register her presence until she clears her throat twice, the second time ostentatiously.

"Did you finish that simulation yet?" He doesn't bother to turn and acknowledge her. No wonder Sinclair had been so aggrieved; it's not a cold snap behind his words but heat, frustration and anger projecting out and used as weapons. "I told you—"

"Marcus, stop."

His hands still. "Abby?" The anger drains from his voice, exposing the bone deep weariness beneath. "Sinclair left, didn't he?"

"Mm-hmm."

"He called you?" He sounds so much like a child saddened by a playmate's betrayal her heart seizes.

"He's married, Marcus. He needed to be at home, with his wife."

"...right. I'd forgotten." Now that frustration is turned inwards and Abby closes the distance between them, laying her hands on the defensive upwards jut of his shoulders.

"It's all right."

Fretfully, he fiddles with the schematics on the screen, still facing away. "Why did he call you? He could have just left."

"Marcus." Her tone is reproachful, but she rubs comforting circles on his shoulders, urging them to relax and drop back where they belong. "He could not have left, not when you said you still needed his help to do the work."

"...you're right." All at once the tension leaves his body and he slumps down in the chair, pliant under her hands. "And now he's gone. Am I going to stop now, then?"

"You are." Dropping a kiss on his forehead, she backs away and gives him room to get up. When he doesn't rise, she sighs. "Now was the operative word."

He sighs, head dropping to hang between his shoulders. "All right. All right, I'll go—"

"Home. With me." She cuts his words off firmly, and his head flies up, eyes wide and startled. "If this is all the time we have left..." It's impossible to find words to describe _why_ she wants this, not when she only half-grasps those reasons herself. "Come home with me."

"You don't want to be alone." There's something painful buried deep behind his instinctive search for a reason this isn't about him. Whatever scars life has left are his own to keep or divulge, but she can't help a surge of protective anger at the thought.

"No, I don't. You're right." A need to not be alone plays its part, denying it would be pointless. Later that creeping despair might drive her to try and find somewhere quiet to rage against the unfairness of it all. Later, not now. That's the last thing she wants right now. "But I could find someone else if all I wanted was not to be alone." She holds out a hand for him to grab and leaves it there patiently when he doesn't reach immediately back.

"Abby..."

He'd wanted one thing that first night, and she'd refused him. He'd forced the truth from her once, but this time she offers it to him freely, watching the way he closes his eyes and inhales deeply as it lands, as if bracing himself against a wave. "I want _you_. To be with you."

His hand is warm and large in hers, long fingers spanning past her wrist as he takes a tight hold and pulls himself up. "Then we'll go."

 

* * *

 

There have been excuses until now. One time can conceivably be the after effects of stress and trauma and relief boiling over into a release of tension. Even Marcus staying the night can be explained as an expression of whatever burgeoning friendship they've somehow managed to fall into, and the morning as impulse and panic expressing themselves in a physical outlet.

This is purposeful. This is something new. Circumstances aside, they're going back to her room because she'd asked him to come. Because she'd admitted that she wants him; Marcus Kane, not the nearest warm body and port in a storm.

The walk to Alpha is quiet, both of their thoughts hidden away. Marcus is back behind his walls, austere as he ever had been when they'd squared off across the council table. Only the sideways glances she can feel prickling along her skin and the leashed tension in his body gives away his own awareness of the line they're crossing.

Crossing the threshold feels like stepping from a familiar wooded path into a clearing; brighter, but entirely unfamiliar.

Abby drops her bag in the corner. The silence is awkward now, oppressive instead of anticipatory. For lack of anything better to say to break the sudden tension, she turns back to him and offers, "I'd ask if you wanted a drink, but I don't have anything to offer."

His laugh is like wood creaking. "I'm afraid I ran through the last of mine before I really needed it."

The reminder of that first night and why it happened fills her with a mix of tenderness and regret and just like that they're not two strangers but Marcus and Abby again, who have grown used to each other's company with shocking speed.

Crooking her finger at him, Abby strips off her own jacket and tosses it over one arm of the couch, her shirt following it before she sits to take off her boots. It's a close mirror to that first night, and when she looks up so is the entranced look on Marcus' face.

"Well? Take off your clothes." She'd said that then, too, but her voice hadn't been warm and Marcus hadn't laughed in return. He hadn't folded his clothes into a precise stack then, either, and the fussiness is so terribly Marcus that something inside tilts in response, realigning itself once again.

Tossing her boots aside, Abby stands and pulls off her pants, too tired and aware of what's just ahead to care about the sweat-stained, dirty underwear on display. His are no better and if he notices them, it's nowhere to be found in his quickened breath and hurry to finish disrobing himself.

They've kissed enough now to be comfortable with it, and it shows in the way he slides an arm around her back and reaches up with the other to thread a hand through her hair. Their height difference means he has to stoop too much to meet her mouth to make this comfortable for long, but he seems content to wait before adjusting, rumbling low in his chest when she rolls her hips, conscious of the spill of pre-come through his boxers, seeping slowly through to saturate the fabric and make a sticky patch on her hip.

When he tries to bear her down to the floor like that, she turns in his arms and puts a hand on his chest to hold him back. "Hey, wait. No."

He swallows, hard, unease written in every line of his body. "I thought..."

"After the first time, I had a lot of time to remember I'm not twenty anymore." Smoothing back an errant lock of his hair absently, Abby shakes her head and leans up to rub at the worried furrow between his brows with her thumb until it smoothes back out. "I haven't changed my mind, but I have a bed, Marcus. I'd like to use it." Nipping at his lower lip she pulls away and heads for the bedroom, unhooking her bra and tossing it aside and stepping out of her panties as she goes.

She can feel Marcus follow, a tangible presence behind her, and she slows her steps to let him catch her at the edge of the bed. One hand snakes around her belly to hold her close, his cock hard and leaking, painting trails on her lower back when she shifts. "So beautiful." He breathes the words into her ear, free hand coming up to cup one breast with exquisite care, teasing around the edges of her nipple with one finger. When it stiffens to his touch, more visible evidence of the effect he has on her, his hips push forward insistently. "Abby, I want..."

"Anything."

She makes the promise breathlessly and his hands tighten just to the edge of pain, relaxing with purposeful effort when she shifts and takes a shaky breath in. "All right." Turning her to face him, he backs her the last few inches into the bed, perched on the very edge.

Then he sinks to his knees in front of her and she moans, taken in by the image. His cock hangs heavy and full between his legs but all his focus is on her as he shuffles forward, unconsciously licking his lips as he stares at how wet she already is. Somewhere in the back of her mind there's a vague tinge of embarrassment, but it's blotted out by the way his open desire fizzes through her blood, lighting up each part of her body until she's incandescent with it.

"I've wanted this." He runs both hands up her thighs, slowly nudging them farther apart and filling the space between until he's flush against the bed. "I wanted to do it that night."

It's what he doesn't say that makes Abby's hips push up of their own volition, body already pleading for things she can't put into words. He'd wanted to taste himself, to bury his face in the evidence of what they'd done and take her apart at the same time.

"Beautiful." He breathes the word out quietly, nosing into the hair covering her pubic mound.

Running his tongue up her center, he flattens his tongue to press against her clit, moaning appreciatively when her hand flies down to clutch his hair and encourage him onwards.

"Marcus, _please_."

Applying himself with the same diligence he turns to council matters, he learns her body, testing what makes her gasp and tug at the hair fisted in her hand, repeating each experiment with escalating success until the fine trembles that rack her thighs turns to uncontrollable shaking and Marcus leans his weight on them, taking the responsibility of not thrusting up into his mouth off her shoulders.

His chin is glistening when he pulls away, heated gaze traveling up her body and taking in the flush spreading across her chest. "Tell me what else you like."

"Use the flat of your tongue again," she pants the order out, tossing her head against the sheets when he obeys. "A little faster."

Orgasm is so close she can feel it lapping at her ankles like bathwater and her inner muscles tighten and release, desperate to have something to squeeze down on and hold locked tight.

"Please, your fingers..." Almost sobbing with the effort of putting energy into words and not chasing the heat building in her veins, Abby tugs at his hair with frantic hands. "I need something inside."

There's a choked groan from between her legs and then Marcus is pressing two fingers deep, groaning again when her body opens to him without resistance.

"There's a spot a few inches in, it feels ruff— _oh_!" He finds it with unerring precision, cutting off the rest of the explanation. "Gentle pressure, that's so good. Then rub up and down, just a little... Marcus, please. _Please_ , I need to come."

All it takes is one strong flick of his tongue and she's done, digging her nails into his scalp and forcing him to push down harder with his forearm against her hips or risk injury. The extra pressure extends the orgasm, ripples on ripples of lingering sensation.

She's still limp when he kneels up and slides home in one thrust, hips meeting hers as he crashes forward, burying his face in her hair and panting with the effort of waiting for anything more. Lazily, Abby swats at his arm, rubbing her cheek against his own and enjoying the slide of his body along hers. "It's all right. Let go."

He groans like a wounded animal, hips hunching forward in awkward, desperate motions and he mutters praise into her ear; how wet she is, how beautiful, how _good_ she feels, the words devolving into nonsense grunts as he nears the edge. When she brings a leg up to hook around his waist and pull him in even closer he stills and lets out one explosive breath, collapsing bonelessly as he fills her, heartbeat so fast she can feel it vibrating against her own sternum.

She strokes his hair as he comes down, finger-combing the sweaty disarray into something closer to his usual order. Then it's her turn to babble encouraging nonsense when he pulls out and drops back to his knees, making good on his earlier fantasies and tending to her sensitive cunt with careful adoration, stabbing the tip of his tongue inside again and again until she's spilling everything he gave her back down his throat.

He drags himself back onto the bed, curling around her and bending to fit the curve of her body and they both drift, breathing slowing into languid unison.

 

* * *

 

Later, Abby props herself up on her side, filled with the kind of giddy satisfaction only fantastic sex can provide.

"Tell me a secret." She doesn't consider the question before it's out, but it strikes her as morbidly appropriate now that it is. What better place for confessions than a deathbed?

"A secret?" Bemused, he shakes his head. "I—" It's obvious he's thought of something, but after a moment he shakes his head. "I wouldn't know which of the many to tell you."

"No, what is it? The first thing you thought of." Gentling her tone, she lays a palm flat against his chest in supplication. "Please, tell me?"

Inhaling, he wets his lips. "You thought it was Jaha who argued your case to the council." His voice is halting, and he can't bring himself to finish the sentence and hand her the conclusion himself.

Comprehension settles in slowly. Thelonious had said it himself—he hadn't been the one to sway the council and steer them towards mercy, but she hadn't given much thought to who had taken up her banner and argued for mercy in his stead.

"It was you."

He nods, eyes on the blanket. "I meant it when I said I respected your skills." Clearly gathering strength, he looks up and holds her gaze, unblinkingly sincere. "This ship needs you. Our people need you."

There's something painfully hopeful in his eyes, guttering like a flame in dire need of oxygen and Abby understands all at once it's a real confession, not one given as part of a game. _I need you_.

The beginnings of a beard tickle when she cups his face in her hands so he can't look away from her gratitude, one thumb tracing a fond swoop along his cheekbone. "Thank you."

Turning his face to kiss her palm, his lips brush her skin like a butterfly's wing when he answers. "You're welcome." Another kiss. "Do I get a secret in return?"

There's only one secret to offer worth what he'd given over to her keeping. "I know why I was so angry with you for what happened." His breath catches, but he doesn't interrupt. "I couldn't blame Thelonious, because if I did... I needed him. Jackson and Callie couldn't know what happened, and if I'd been furious with him..." She would have been truly alone in her misery. Pardoning Thelonious had been the only way to allow herself a safe haven to mourn Jake, where she wouldn't need to guard her tongue. "I couldn't carry it all myself, so I put the rest on you."

He shakes his head, dislodging her hands and then holding both of them in one of his own. "No, Abby. I counseled fast action. You thought Thelonious would put friendship first, but I knew what I was doing." In her grief, it was easy to forget that he'd have his own. That grief is written on his face now, shadows darkening his eyes.

"You thought telling everyone the truth would cause a panic."

"And I was wrong."

"You were." There's no judgment in her voice but his eyes shut anyway, shame suffusing his features. She kisses each closed eyelid in turn, wishing she could lift that guilt in the time they have left. "You thought you were doing the right thing."

He opens his eyes again, displaying a fine sheen of tears. "So did you."

When she presses their lips together it tastes like salt, but Marcus is warm and holding her close and kissing her back. They lapse back into quiet, wrapped tight around each other like gears in a clock until a familiar dual beeping starts in the other room, signaling their amnesty from the outside world is over.

"Well." He pauses, reflectively. "At least I'm not sure that whatever it is, it can be any worse than an interruption right now."

Her laughter edges into the hysteria of true exhaustion, but it's genuine and with one last kiss Abby rolls away and sits, stretching and then gathering up her clothes so she can be dressed before she has to confront the latest disaster at the end of the line.

 

* * *

 

Thelonious' message to them both is sparse: just a summons to Earth Monitoring without a mention of _why_ he needs them.

Sinclair's already there when they arrive, in the middle of a passionate speech, his frayed nerves on full display. "Sir, we _can't_. I've run all the simulations, and there is not a single one that says we can survive this."

"Sir?" Stepping past her, Kane looks between Sinclair and Thelonious with confusion. "Sir, I was here when he ran them. Sinclair's telling the truth. The Ark can't saved."

"Kane. Abby." Inclining his head in greeting, Thelonious gestures for them to come closer. "Sinclair may be right about the answer to that question. But I have a different question: what if we don't save her?"

"What do mean? Thelonious, what—"

"Abby. Trust me." She inhales, wanting to continue, but lets it out in defeat and nods him on. "As it stands, we have two options left. Die in space... or probably meet the same fate trying to get to the ground."

Marcus meets her eyes, her doubt mirrored back in his expression. "Sir... that was the last Exodus ship. We don't have another ship to even begin to _try _—"__

"You're wrong, Kane." Thelonious cuts off his objections as well and spreads his hands wide, smile beatific. "We have the Ark." Marcus shoots him a startled look and Sinclair's eyes go wide with disbelief but he continues, serenely confident in where he's going and what he's already decided they need to do. "Mr. Sinclair, please tell the councillor what would happen if we use the thrusters to propel us _into_ the atmosphere instead of holding us aloft."

The calculation in Sinclair's face and his explanation, halting at first but gaining in the kind of sharp-eyed determination that means he thinks he can make it happen tells Abby all she needs to know. His words fade into the background, part of the rattle and hum of the unimportant details that all add up to _Clarke_. If Thelonious is right and Sinclair can find a way to pull off one more impossibility, she can see Clarke again.

Even Marcus is swept up, excitement only barely checked by pragmatism. "Are we really doing this? Bringing the Ark back to the ground?"

"What other choice do we have?" Turning his gaze to her, Thelonious smiles her friend's smile as the fire builds up again behind his eyes. "What do you say, Abby? Are you ready to see your daughter again?"

The wave of need that hits her almost drives her to her knees and closes her throat, but Abby manages to nod.

"All right. Sinclair, we have forty-three hours to nail down that five percent down and get all our people spread out among it. Get to it." When Sinclair nods and rushes back to a console, hands already busy, Jaha turns to look out the window, at the swirl of blue and white and muddy brown where the kids are waiting. Where _Clarke_ is waiting. "Soon. Soon, we'll bring our people home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT FINALLY HAPPENED and now the question on twitter can be "when are they going to have sex AGAIN?" 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy the chapter; the next one will go up in the week following Halloween, and then we're all set for season one! Thanks so much to everyone who has read and commented, I can't say enough how much I appreciate every single one of you.


	7. blinded by the colors i see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kane and Abby cross a few new bridges, all the members of Team Adult make at least a brief appearance, and everything changes.

Sinclair's already buried in calculations before they reach the door, Thelonious a silent attendant to his efforts. The mess is still half-full when they enter; the decision to take the Ark down will mean the return of rationing, but without a reason to give for _why_ rationing is at an end, there's no way to rescind the order. Marcus is greeted with poorly masked suspicion, but the attendants spare Abby grateful smiles, and one of them slips a small, silver square onto her tray. _Chocolate_. When Abby tries to return it, she bangs on the counter and gestures for the next person in line, winking at Abby as she heads away.

"What was that?" Marcus arches one brow when she sits again, looking down at her plate curiously.

"I'll tell you later." He's too hungry to follow his natural curiosity; too hungry to talk, but she's no better. Hunger pangs are a simple part of life on the Ark, and she's old enough to remember times when even Alpha felt the squeeze of long food shortages. Still: once the first bite is in her mouth Abby remembers how low it's been since her last real meal. By the time she looks up from her empty plate, Marcus is finishing off the last bite of his own.

By quiet agreement, they don't stay to grab another tray. A pile of prepackaged meals meant for the maintenance crews working on weeks long projects stands waist-high by the door, and with a small hitch of guilt Abby takes two on their way out. She's already wasted every last bit of their epinephrine stash, supplies that might have real use in making sure serious injuries from their upcoming crash don't need to be fatal. Taking more food is another sin on the scale, even as her rational mind says after so many skipped meals she's only making up for calories lost at a time when she needs to be as alert as possible.

Marcus nods with approval when she stops dithering with the silver packets and slips them in a pocket. Somehow the guilt lessens with that quick movement—regardless of the new bonds tying them together, she can't imagine a version of him that would put her hunger over the needs of the group. It might have felt like a slight even a month ago, more evidence of cold disinterest in the individual lives of the people around him. Now it's more complicated; his seeming remove covers a deep interest, one that puts his own needs below what he thinks will keep the rest of his people safe.

Companionable silence is another thing she'd never thought she'd share with Marcus, but their walk back to Alpha feels natural. For the first time, he doesn't ask if she wants his company, just falls into step and keeps slightly inside the space propriety demands, close enough she can feel the heat of his body through his jacket.

"Here we are." He leans against the wall just to the left of the door when they arrive, covering a yawn with one hand. "Sinclair said the showers aren't working, but there's always sleep. And it wouldn't hurt if you ate those MREs... it had been a day or so since you had a meal, hadn't it?"

"Almost two." She's too surprised he noticed to downplay her own negligence. "Wait a minute. And how long had it been for you, exactly?"

He winces. "I'd rather not admit it."

"I thought so." She pushes a palm down on her pocket, crinkling the foil inside. "I brought back two for a reason. Unless you need to be somewhere else..."

"No! No. No." He scratches the back of his neck, not meeting her eyes. "It's just... I didn't want to assume."

Abby sighs, shaking her head. "Marcus."

"What?"

Pressing up on her toes, she kisses him firmly, potential audience be damned. Rumors are the last things they need to worry about now. "Assume."

When she tries to step back, conscious of his desire to maintain appearances, it's Marcus who continues the kiss, sliding an arm around her back and deepening it. "Quite a reward for being rude."

Cupping his cheeks in her hands and savoring the rasp of his growing beard, Abby shakes her head. "It's not rude when you're wanted."

"I'm never going to get tired of hearing you say that." He has a way of revealing himself that's utterly artless, a baring of secrets she's not sure he understands reveal as much as they do.

Brushing the tip of his nose with her own, Abby leans away enough to unlock the door. "As much as I like this conversation, maybe we should continue it inside?"

He waits for her to take what she wants to eat once they settle in, and it's as sweet as it is vaguely irritating. At least once his first bite is down, he forgets to watch her—not that he'd need to. They've both been running on fear and adrenaline and the need to keep up appearances as two of the only recognizable authority figures left, and there's no need to pretend not to be starving in the privacy of her quarters.

Breaking of the bread through, he looks up, brushing distractedly at the crumbs on his shirtfront. He fits so seamlessly now into the life she'd made within these walls, it's hard to remember there was ever a time when he might have been unwelcome.

"Do you want to get some sleep? We have at least three hours until Sinclair finishes his work. That's better than no sleep at all."

He's still trying to be solicitous, even at the edge of the end of the world as they'd always known it; the transitional generation, transitioning into a world never meant to be theirs. It's that same familiar mix of endearing and frustrating she's coming to know well, and she shakes her head. "Marcus, if these are some of the last moments I have... I'd like them to be good ones."

"We'll sleep after, then." Abby spots the shell-shocked look that lurks in the back of his eyes whenever she affirms what he'd wanted to hear that first night before he reaches for her, and any reassurance she might offer is lost in the way he takes her in his arms like it might be their last time together.

They're both filthy, covered in soot and worse and Marcus kisses his way down her body without seeming to notice, staining his lips with the blood on her hands. "You're so beautiful." He mutters it into the skin beside her navel, tracing a vein downwards with the tip of his tongue and sighing happily when she bucks up into his hands. "So goddamned beautiful, Abby."

"Marcus, please."

"Anything you want." He rubs his face into the crease of her thigh, so close to where she wants him she can feel his breath stirring the curls over her groin. "Anything."

"Your mouth." She threads her fingers through his hair, tugging insistently. "I told you what I want, now would you just—" her demand breaks off into a moan when he obeys, using everything he's already learned about her to see if he can break her into pieces faster than he had the first time. Everything feels sharper, balanced on the edge of salvation, knowing this might be the last time to feel this again. It's all electric; his fingers gripping her with enough force to bruise, his facial hair rubbing the inside of her thighs until they're as red as her face, the way he moans into her cunt when she explodes and chases her to another peak, tries to take her through the next before she forces him away and then up her body. He's silent save for a soft gasp when she takes him deep, clutching at him just as fiercely as he had held her, gentling him through his own release.

"God." Marcus lowers himself down onto his forearms, making to slip out of her. The thought of losing him so soon aches and Abby clutches at his back, cajoling. "No, stay."

"Are you sure?"

Instead of answering Abby pulls his head to her chest, smoothing the hair away from his forehead and enjoying the feeling of his body covering her own, sturdy and capable.

"He'd hate me for this." The confession is low and mournful, and Marcus holds her tighter like admitting it means she'll be taken from him.

"...who would hate you, Marcus?" Even as she says it, Abby knows the answer to her own question. Who else other than Clarke has built a shrine to a dead man's memory, carefully constructed him into a saint in hindsight? "No, no. He wouldn't."

"He would." Propping himself up on his arms so he can look at her, he sighs. "Look at everything I've done. Everyone I've hurt. You know he would."

"I like to think I knew the man I married." He looks away at that, towards the ring sitting on the dresser, and she turns his face back with a firm hand on his jaw. "He _loved_ you." The tears gathering are obvious now and he tries to blink them away, but one escapes to land between her breasts. "When you stopped coming to visit... He missed you so much, Marcus. He was just waiting for you to be ready to come back, you have to know that."

The tears he's been trying to hold back escape, peeling away his veneer of control and exposing the kind of anguish she can't relieve with words. "He loved you." Gathering him back to her chest and stroking his hair, she murmurs the truth and hopes he'll be able to begin to believe it. "He loved you, Marcus." He surges up to kiss her, messy and desperate like he can't decide if he wants to stop the flow of words or take them in and make them his own. "He loved you."

He hardens inside her with each repetition, hips hitching forward in minute thrusts that gain power as they kiss and she presses the words onto his tongue, willing him to make them part of his reality. This time there's something different in his touch, a factor she's never accounted for and can't bring herself to name.

 _Love_. He mouths the word into her skin, tears still slowly trickling from the corners of his eyes, washing them both clean where they touch. _Love, love, love_.

 

* * *

 

It's barely under two hours when Thelonious sends the word Sinclair's found the answers they need, not Marcus' predicted three. They dress in shared silent anticipation, and this time he has to hurry to match her stride on their way back to Go-Sci rather than the other way around. She can't resent the loss of time together now, not when this means she has an hour less to wait until she can see Clarke again. Anything other outcome is unthinkable, and she focuses all her energy on refusing to consider them. Clarke is waiting, and she's going to find her.

Sinclair is still busy at the console, but Thelonious stands in the middle of the room, greeting each person who walks in. It's one of his better tactics, and the first hint of doubt creeps in; he wouldn't use it unless he felt he needed to, to couch the weight of his message in something grander. Sinclair's frown only lends weight to that, the frantic dart of his eyes across the screen spelling out his desire for an answer other than the one they have.

"Mr. Sinclair?" Thelonious inclines his head towards him, more order than request.

"Right." Drawing a deep breath, Sinclair squares his shoulders and pitches his voice to reach the people lingering on the edges of the control room even over the hum of machinery. "Here's how we bring her down. Stage one, we separate from Go-Sci. We've planted a few charges, and those charges will help start a series of controlled explosions severing the ties between where we're standing and the rest of the stations. Once that happens, the port thrusters will kick in and our orbit will immediately start to degrade. That brings me to Stage Two; reentry." His eyes flicker over to Thelonious, who gives one quick nod. "All right. Reentry is going to be... jarring. And very, _very_ hot. Once the Ark begins to break apart in her original component parts, there's a very real chance that—" He stops, unable to find the right way to translate his numbers into the emotional reality of the risk they're about to take.

"Some of the stations," Jaha intones, brow creased in the look of gravity he's perfected, "will not survive the journey down. And neither will those of us on them."

Sinclair picks up the thread again, mouth tight. "And unfortunately, there's no way to pinpoint which stations are which." His real meaning is clear; there's no way to pinpoint which among them will die in the attempt. "But for those that do, stage three will be making a landing. The intact stations' starboard thrusters will fire with all they've got... it's as close as I can get to landing rockets, and they _will_ slow impact, but we'll need to hit the ground at seventy miles an hour. The slower the better, but seventy is our target. Anything over that..." He shakes his head. "I've run every simulation I can think of, and anything over that just isn't survivable."

The mood in the room begins to turn from fearful towards panicked, and Thelonious turns away from Sinclair and his plans to face the people he's asking to follow them. "We knew this carried risk, but if we don't take that risk, we _all_ die." The discontented hum doesn't abate, and he raises his hands beseechingly. "We can't let our fear deter us from destiny."

Summoning all the irrational, baseless faith she's using as fuel, Abby raises her own voice enough to slice through the discontent hanging like a veil over the room. "How close will we be landing to the kids?"

Thelonious cuts her a grateful glance as her certainty slowly seeps through the room and buoys its collapsing enthusiasm, smile bringing one corner of his mouth up in gratitude. "As close as we can." It's the chancellor who continues, smile tucked back away. "Councillor Kane will create a roster and have it ready within the next hour." It's not enough time, not hardly enough, but Marcus only gives a sharp affirmative. "And Dr. Griffin will oversee the equal division of all remaining supplies, to ensure we all have the same chance at survival."

"What do we tell our constituents?" Mecha's representative crosses her arms over her chest, and her eyes stay glued to the simulation playing out onscreen as Sinclair goes back to his work.

"The truth. That what we are about to undertake is dangerous. That some of us won't live to see the fruit of our struggles." Thelonious inhales deeply, and turns rapturous eyes to the planet spinning beneath them, waiting for their arrival. "And that those of us who do will finally be _home_."

 

* * *

 

"Dr. Griffin?" How Byrne's uniform manages to _feel_ crisp even if she's as rumpled as the rest of them, Abby will never know. "Councillor Kane has finalized his roster. A copy should already be up on your screen."

"Thank you, Major Byrne."

"Ma'am." She offers a sharp nod, as respectful as any she would give Marcus. Stiffness aside, Shumway had been evidence enough that loyal officers are worth keeping that way. Byrne's rigid adherence to the rule of law might be what they need right now.

People and supplies come in in a trickle, then a flood, until every surface is covered with the baskets and crates and armloads in rough collections, each to be looked over and then allotted. There's not enough time to do much more than run a quick check on each, but this close to Sinclair's window of opportunity anyone still thinking more about trying to pad their packets is beyond worrying about.

Taking a quick glance at the list and the names she's familiar with, Marcus had the same worry. Other than a few key public figures left in their home stations, he's put at least half the ship on a station other than their own. The room starts to throb with discontent as one by one, they reach the same conclusion. Quiet conversations ensue, growing louder when Marcus arrives with more guards to help distribute supplies fairly.

The mood in the mess hall is balanced on a knife's edge when someone whistles sharply. Pike steps into the center of the room, placing a large crate on one of the tables with a declarative thud. "Farm Station, let's give these people their parting gifts."

One by one, his people pull bottles from their meager collections of possessions until there's enough liquor on the table to pull down a small fortune from Nygel, were she still alive to collect it.

"Charles." Affecting a stern look that cracks around the edges, Marcus crosses his arms over his chest and raises an austere eyebrow. "And here I thought a former member of the guard wouldn't be the man I would look to if I wanted to find the contents of every still on Farm."

"No, you didn't."

"No, I didn't." Laughing, Marcus extends an arm, letting out a little oof of surprise when Pike uses the handshake to pull him in for an embrace.

Stepping back, Pike offers her a respectful nod. "Dr. Griffin." When she nods back, he turns back to Marcus and gives him one last squeeze on the shoulder. "I'm going to help make sure nobody gets greedy with our contribution. I want to talk to you before we leave, though. When you've got a couple minutes..."

"I'll find you."

Satisfied, he narrows his eyes at a young man barely older than Clarke, frozen in the act of trying to pick up a full crate. "That better be all Hydra's taking down, Balewa. Don't think I didn't take a look at the roster, son..."

Clapping a hand to his shoulder, Pike leads the boy away. Marcus chuckles, watching them go. "He always was good with the recruits. I shouldn't have been so surprised when he turned in his jacket and decided to teach Earth Skills, of all things."

"At least he'll finally be able to put the theory to use."

"Earth Skills and a member of the guard." Snorting, Marcus casts an affectionate look towards Pike, kneeling next to a group of children from Factory. "He might be better suited to survive the ground than any of us. Maybe we ought to keep him in Mecha with us."

Abby follows his gaze, shaking her head and bumping her hip into his. "If you think you can convince him to leave Farm Station behind..."

"Point taken."

"Abby?" Jackson's hand lands on her wrist tentatively. Ignoring Marcus, he gestures towards the wall. "I supervised dismantling medical. Other than the equipment, if we could break it down and take it out, it's split evenly. Can we talk?"

"Of course. Marcus?" Jackson looks pained at the delay and its cause, but he looks away in a meaningless show of giving them privacy.

His eyes flick to Jackson, then back to her, smile lighting them. "Go."

Jackson's hand stays warm on her wrist as they leave Marcus to his business, but it's more the fearful grasp of a child lost in the dark than a man who wants to get his point across in privacy. Rotating her palm, Abby links their fingers together and pulls him to a stop. "Are you all right?"

"I want to go with you. In Mecha," he blurts out, then looks vaguely horrified with himself before pressing forward anyway. "We work better together, you know we do. If something happens... we need each other."

"And our people need at least one of us to make it." Shaking his hand gently to emphasize the words, Abby struggles to get the rest out and wishes there was any other answer to give. "You know that, too. If I don't make it—" He tries to cut her off, and she talks over the beginning of his objections. "If I don't make it, you'll be in charge of medical."

"You're my family, Abby. The only person I have left." Jackson's too far gone to care that they're having this conversation with people all around, many of them in earshot. "Please, if you talk to Kane—"

"No, Jackson." It breaks her heart to watch the last glimmers of desperate hope fade into acceptance. "I love you, but it has to be this way."

"Kane's in Mecha, too." He's as sullen as any child, staring down at where their fingers lace together.

"Marcus isn't a doctor." She sighs, wishing they were anywhere but the staging area for their last hope. She can't hold Jackson the way she'd like, but she can offer a hug like the ones occurring all around them, freed from paralysis by Pike's entrance. "You know if I could, I'd keep you with me." He grunts, and Abby taps the back of his hand with her nails, waiting until he looks up at her to stop. "You're part of my family, too. Just like I taught Clarke to do what's right, I expect the same thing from you." Mary Jackson looms large in both their memories and Abby would never presume to take her place, but in her heart she's spent years committing the same crime that saw Aurora Blake separated from both her children forever. "You'll make me proud. You always do."

He sniffles into her hair, burying his face rather than let the rest of the room see his tears. "I love you," he says, inhaling deeply and drawing strength from her own. "All right. I need to go help supervise handing out the basic supplies."

"There you go." Pride is a double edged sword, watching the seeds you've helped plant become entirely their own fruits. "May we meet again, Jackson."

"May we meet again."

Someone takes Jackson's place at her side as he strides away, and Abby doesn't have to turn and look to know who it is. "Take care of him, Thelonious."

"I will. You take care of them." He nods at the people around them, busy lifting and carrying and anticipating, despite the odds. "The people trust you now. They'll need to know that we're all working together."

Cautiously, Abby nods. Thelonious had always been more interested in the philosophical than the concrete, even when they were children. Jake shared her passion for the kind of change one person can effect with their hands, the tangible results of their labors, but Thelonious understood her need for the kind of change you can't see; the kind they might never see, and had to trust someday their children might. The pin took that need and slowly changed it, to an end she can no longer make out clearly.

"I did what I thought was right. I can't apologize for that. I won't." His eyes stay fixed on the crowd, and it takes a moment for Abby to understand what he means before the bottom drops out. _Jake_. He means Jake.

"Thelonious—"

"But I can admit I was wrong." His shoulders drop, losing some of the stiff certainty he carries like a shield. "I wonder sometimes, if I had waited—if I had listened to him..." He takes a careful breath, pulling any reaction to the thought inside and locking it there. "But we can only move forwards. We might still be here, facing this very choice." He chances a look sideways, and Abby meets his gaze until the regret finally pushes free and carves the worry lines around his eyes even deeper. "I can only imagine what he would think of all this."

His forearm quivers with leashed tension when Abby rests her hand on his sleeve. "He always did love it when his team made a last minute play."

Thelonious laughs, closing his hand over hers and patting it gently. "He certainly did." Leaning closer, he brushes her lips over her forehead and for just a moment she's thrown back to a time before they needed to weigh loyalty against love and see which they found wanting. "Be safe, Abby. The next time we see each other, we'll be home."

"May we meet again."

He meets her eyes and smiles, already pushing back into the crowd. "We will."

Across the room, Marcus and Pike are having their own goodbyes. Marcus' face is serious, hair falling in his face only to be tossed impatiently away as he lectures Pike on something she's still too far away to make out. Reaching out with one thick finger, Pike prods Marcus in the chest until he reluctantly laughs and concedes Pike's point, pulling him into a brief embrace. He picks up something and offers it to Pike, the offering only taking shape when Pike shakes it out and holds it up, face unreadable.

The black canvas of Arkadia's guard uniform is impossible to miss, even with the familiar patch hidden. Pike stares down at it, transfixed, only shaken free when she approaches them.

"Dr. Griffin." He puts it on as he greets her, and the jacket molds to his shoulders like it never left. "Take care of yourself on the way down, all right? And keep this one from falling over his feet while he's lining up a shot."

"It was _once_." It has the sound of an old protest, turned into a joke through repetition. "And I still made it, didn't I?"

"You did." Pike's voice carries that same weight of affectionate history. "All right, I gotta get my people moving. I guess I'll see you on the ground."

"May we meet again, Charles."

"I'll hold you to it." Pike brushes past Sinclair on his way out, and nods at the tall woman in guard's jacket who stops just short of Sinclair, face inscrutable. He holds his arms out and she rushes into them, burying her face in his hair.

Beside her, Marcus stills, brow knitting. "Is that—"

"Sinclair's wife? Yes."

Sinclair rests his forehead gently against her darker one, breathing slowly and mouthing words Abby wouldn't try to interpret, even if she thought she could. The reality of any goodbye potentially being the last one has clearly swept from person to person, until the restraint shown earlier is lost in a sea of people taking one last moment to fix the moment in memory forever.

"I had no idea she was in the guard." He frowns. "I should have seen her name when I was putting together the roster."

"If you were looking for a woman named Sinclair, that would be why. She still goes by Achebe."

"Achebe." He scans the roster and frowns, watching their goodbye come to and end. "I assigned her unit in Factory. If I had known... but it's too late now."

"If you had known?" Abby prompts, determined to steer him away from unnecessary guilt.

"I would have asked them if they had a preference—I asked anyone with a living spouse, or I thought I did. If they didn't answer, I defaulted to... what?" He looks down at her face and stops, worried. "What it is?"

"You're a good man, Marcus Kane."

He stills, an animal caught in a trap. "I didn't..."

"You did your best."

"Not for them."

Sighing, Abby bumps his hip with hers reprovingly. "You did your best."

"Sir? Abby."

Marcus straightens at David Miller's low voice, hands coming behind him in a parade rest. "What is it, Sergeant Miller?"

Excitement barely contained behind protocol, Miller answers as levelly as he can. "Time for us to go home, sir."

 

* * *

 

Sinclair starts the last check with barely contained energy. "Mecha station, good to go." One by one each station repeats his assurance, until there's no one left on the Ark but in the spaces he's designated as most likely to survive impact.

The hatch he'd pinpointed in Mecha is cold, more than Alpha ever had been, and there are too many of them squeezed into too little space. The safety harnesses are barely more than a few straps and prayers, but there's nothing to be done for any of it.

Marcus slips his hand into hers, derailing a spiral of each safety concern in their cramped safe haven. "Soon, Abby."

It's not a reprimand; it's a _promise_ , and Abby squeezes back.

"Chancellor Jaha, that's everyone. We're prepared for launch."

Thelonious' voice curls through the cold, the familiar words of the Traveler's Blessing as comforting as they are rote. She mouths them along with him, breathing in the same rhythm. "May we meet again."

"May we meet again." Everyone around her answers as one voice, and Thelonious waits for it to die away before issuing his orders.

"Sinclair?"

"Yes, sir?"

"It's time to go home."

"Taking us home, sir." His eyes meet Abby's for a split-second before he turns back to setting destiny in motion, and she can see her own fevered excitement reflected back. "Initiating separation from Go-Sci in five, four, three," he pauses, swallowing hard. "Two, one." The polite beep of confirmation hardly seems momentous enough a signal, but the palpable excitement doesn't dim; if anything, it shines brighter, sweeping through them all like a hot wind as Marcus' grip on her hand becomes bruising. "Separate."

Abby holds her breath, waiting for the promised jolt of movement and chest-compressing speed. Time seems to hold its breath along with her; the only sound in the hatch is creaking of the metal around them.

"Sir... remote detonation failed." Sinclair's words refuse to arrange themselves in an order that makes sense until she meets his eyes and the fatalistic certainty in them. "That's a negative on Go-Sci separation. A negative for launch."

"Can you fix it?" Thelonious' voice crackles with badly concealed fear.

That anticlimactic beeping feels mocking now as Sinclair assesses the issue. "Not from here, sir, but..." He looks up, his own fear laid bare. "Someone is going to have to trigger the launch manually. From _inside_ Go-Sci."

 _Someone is going to have to die if they want to live_. Marcus drops her hand before the thought finishes and Abby feels the creeping dread of reliving a nightmare while she's awake. "What are you doing?" She lays her arm across his chest, pushing with all her strength to try and keep him next to her. "Marcus..."

"Someone is going to need to stay behind."

"That someone doesn't have to be _you_. There has to be another way." Turning beseeching eyes on Sinclair, she begs him without words to have one last miracle.

"I can go back and reprogram the system..." She opens her mouth to capitalize on that, but he cuts her off. "But that would take time we don't have. Reprogramming the system means we miss our window for the eastern United States." He shakes his head, helpless to give her the answer she needs. "Abby, we wouldn't land anywhere near the kids."

"So we wait, just long enough for the window to come back around." Any other choice isn't one she'll accept as possible.

"We'll be out of air by then."

Sinclair and Marcus trade a loaded glance, then Marcus shakes off her arm, kneeling by her side and taking her hand in his own bandaged one. "Salvation... it comes at a price."

"Not like this. Please, I can't... _please_ , Marcus. Don't do this." It's a useless protest, she can tell even as the words spill out in a desperate stream. He's going to do it, just like Jake. Just like Jake and Clarke, she'll stare the unimaginable in the face, unable to do anything but invite it into her home and watch it take everything. "Don't."

"I have to. You know it as well as I do."

"I _don't_ —"

"You do." He kisses her knuckles and stands, joined hands the last point of connection holding him here, alive and with her. "Because it's what Jake would have done."

Abby wants to rage at him, hurl invective and bargain until he sees that what Jake would have done doesn't _matter_ , because what Jake did was leave her. Salvation's price has been her heart, again and again, and there's a childish part of her that would rather see them all burn than pay it one more time. "Go." Releasing Marcus' hand, she steels herself to watch him walk away.

"Abby..." Sinclair's eyes are kind, and she has to look towards the floor before the tenuous grip she has on tears dissolves entirely.

"How much air will he have?" Jake had the space between one breath and the next, and then he was gone. Death won't be so kind to Marcus.

"A week... two weeks at most."

Two weeks alone, watching the salvation he's so determined to die for play out beneath his feet, unable to do anything to help or hinder. Two weeks without food or water. The medical realities of his death are too easy to picture, and the first tear escapes to trace a path down her cheek.

Marcus is nearly gone when the floors shudders and sways and hurls him sideways, narrowly missing bringing his head into a painful collision with the bulkhead.

"We're away." Sinclair is stunned at first, but when he meets her eyes there's excitement rising and she allows herself to hope. "We've launched."

" _How_?"

It's Thelonious who answers. "Godspeed, my friends. Safe passage on your travels."

"Thelonious..." In all her terror, she never considered Thelonious as a loss she might incur. He's been so unavoidably part of her life for so long his presence became as integral as one of her own limbs. "What have you done?"

"What my people needed me to. Take care of them, Abby." There's no trace of the prophet now, only the friend. "You'll see Clarke again soon."

He cuts off the connection then, and Marcus climbs back towards her, teeth gritted as he grimly clings to each hand offered until he's back by her side, working against the growing pressure to try and strap himself down again. When the world explodes into violent white and Abby's head slams back into the wall behind her, his hand is wrapped tightly around hers.

 

* * *

 

At some point between atmosphere and impact she must have lost consciousness, because Abby awakes to a new world. Mecha creaks and groans but her structure holds firm, and their makeshift harnesses and padding somehow did the same.

"Marcus." Coughing, Abby tries again. "Marcus, are you all right?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Voice just as hoarse as her own, Marcus struggles to untie the mess they'd made of his harness tying him back in. "I'm alive at least. I think you're going to have to cut these for me."

"I don't have—"

"I do. Open my jacket, it's in the top pocket of my tac vest." Gingerly she reaches inside, pausing when her hand meets wood and not metal. "It's a straight razor, don't worry. Until you open it, the blade's no danger."

The hatch comes to sluggish life around them as she saws carefully at his bonds, silently impressed by the edge he's kept on something most people would have traded away long ago.

"Councillor, Abby." Sinclair staggers up to his feet, touching his radio before peering down at the tablet in his hand. "We're going to need to get moving. We're safe for right now, but I can't promise structural integrity is something we can count on for much longer." He looks back down and makes a few more adjustments. "The descent knocked our comms out, but I think I've just about got them back."

The immediate crackle in her radio proves him right, the static resolving itself into a familiar voice, even if the words are impossible to distinguish.

"Thelonious." Another burst of static. "We made it. Mecha station is on the ground. I repeat, Mecha station reached the ground."

"Abby." Even the patchy connection can't strip away the relief in his voice. "It's good to hear your voice again."

"Yours too. Has anyone else checked in?" _Alpha_. Unbidden, the word takes hold of her heart and constricts. Alpha, where she'd forced Jackson to stay.

"No. You're the first. Any sign of them from the ground?"

Marcus is already straining to release the bulkhead door, and silently three members of the guard rise to help him. Stepping back, he gestures for her. "Stand by. We're heading outside now."

The first breath stops her mid-rung, before she's even able to see anything but the last few inches of familiar patched and dented metal. It smells like nothing she's ever experienced before, and Thelonious hears the catch in her breathing. "What's it like?" His voice shocks her back into action, vaulting up and out before staggering to a stop. "Abby, is everything all right?"

"It's so beautiful." There are no words she can imagine that would describe the awe of the moment, and she struggles to make use of the inarticulate ones at her disposal. "The water... the _trees_... they're so beautiful. And the air..." She inhales deeply, filling her lungs with its chill. "It smells sweet. It's everything we ever dreamed." Regret tempers her joy, as she listens to his ragged breathing. "Thelonious, you should be here."

He doesn't answer, and in the silence Marcus joins her, blinking back tears at the brilliance of the late afternoon sun. Then his eyes narrow and he turns her to face away from the water, towards where the forest grows thick against the mountainside. "Look."

Smoke rises in billows, past the trees and up to the skyline. "There's smoke. It looks like an explosion... maybe one of the other stations. We'll go take a look."

He inhales, shakily. "Good. Find the rest of our people, Abby. Find _Clarke_."

"Thelonious..." He's gone, and she reaches for Marcus' hand instinctively.

"We'll need to set up camp for the night." He doesn't look away from the water, and his usual practicality still carries a hint of grief. "We'll want somewhere relatively open, and there's not enough time to get from here to whatever caused that fire before sundown."

"But—"

"Just until first light. We can't help them if we can't find them, and we can't do it in the dark."

One by one, the rest of their people ascend the ladder and emerge into the sunlight, some raising their hands to shield their eyes and others standing stock-still with tears coursing, pinned in place by the world they'd never thought would be theirs. Sinclair emerges last, coming to take a place at Marcus' shoulder. "What's the plan?"

"Set up camp." Abby lets go of Marcus' hand with a soft squeeze. "We should unload the supplies, too."

"I wouldn't mind a fire," Sinclair adds.

"I'll split the guard." He's already issuing orders as he takes the first step away, creating order out of the awestruck chaos and herding them firmly towards the ground.

 

* * *

 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Marcus melts out of the darkness to stand at her shoulder, glancing up at the sunset painting the sky a lurid orange above their heads. "You shouldn't be this close to the treeline alone. Some of the reports we had from the kids... I want to see a member of the guard with you if you're planning on stepping away from the group. Especially at night."

"I feel like I'm seeing color for the first time." His scolding can't make a dent tonight, not when Clarke is nearby and they're on the _ground_. "And I don't need a member of the guard."

" _Abby_ —"

"I have something better. I have you."

He gapes then blushes, visible even in the rare light afforded this close to where the canopy blocks the moonlight. "Well." Coughing, he searches for a response. "Be that as it may, please. No trips into the woods alone. Until we link back up with Alpha, you're the only doctor we have left."

 _Until_. Whether his faith is as strong as her own or he knows allowing any possibility they won't find the others is too much to bear until they need to, the word itself is a comfort. "No trips alone," she repeats back to him, sincerely. "I promise, Marcus."

"Good." Resting a hand on the butt of his rifle, he relaxes and allows it when she leans into his side. He's still too wary of their audience to put an arm around her, but the pressure of his body against hers is enough for the moment. "Did you ever imagine it?"

He doesn't need to explain what he means, not with the sky rioting above them, purple beating back the oranges and pinks to claim its share of the glory. "Once or twice. I thought about what it used to look like more than anything else. And about what I'd seen in pictures."

"I pictured it like this. Vast, beautiful... empty."

"I don't know about that last one."

"No, you're right." He puts an arm around her now, posture screaming that he'd like to turn and make sure no one is watching but won't let the impulse move his feet. "It's not empty after all."

It should be impossible to feel so happy in the face of so much left uncertain, but the air itself is intoxicating. The cold stings her nostrils and even _that_ has a particular smell, as new as the rest. "You said I needed a member of the guard, didn't you? If I needed to go anywhere."

He tenses. "I did, yes."

"Then I think you're going to have to follow me, Marcus." He realizes her intentions too late and only grabs the empty air where she had been standing.

"Abby—this isn't a game. I'm not— _Abby_!"

There's a note of genuine panic in his voice when she disappears around a trunk, hand outstretched to help keep her balance. There's nothing she can compare it to, just that simple touch of bark on her skin, and it's enough to set her head spinning. Everything is a first now: first kiss on earth, first embrace. When Marcus circles the tree she yanks at his jacket, pressing him back against damp wood and holding him there using her body. "I'm fine."

"You're impossible."

She laughs, nuzzling into his throat and feeling the vibrations of his voice accompany the quick thud-thud-thud of his pulse. "And reckless, you called me that too."

"It's still true." He kisses her in the same breath, stooping down to meet her upward surge. Their bodies understand each other now, and Abby's eyes flutter shut when his hips twitch forward, heavy cock already pressing against his fly and reminding her she's barely had a chance to reciprocate the attention he's given her. He moans brokenly when she reaches between them to test the weight of him against her palm, feel the way he thickens at her touch.

"No, stop." Placing his hands over hers, he halts her progress and brings them back above his waist, holding them away from his body.

It's such an abrupt shift Abby stumbles a little, hurt in spite of herself. "Of course. I understand." They're too close to camp. Too easy to discover.

He accurately translates her expression and brings her hands up to holds them over his heart, his answering chuckle wry. "I don't think you do. I'd very much like to let you do whatever you want to me." He releases her hands and tips her chin up, a gentle pressure on her jaw. "I want to touch you, all the time. I think maybe I always have."

"So why—"

"Because I can't think about anything else when you touch me. As beautiful as this all is... it's dangerous, too." He gestures around them, disturbing one branch and splashing them both with some of the rainwater lingering in its needles. "I can't protect you if all I can think about is how much I want hold you." He kisses her fingertips, breath gusting over them and making her palms tingle, voice lowering with memory. "How good it feels when I'm inside you."

"I—" She has to swallow and wet her lips before continuing. "I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me want to try and convince you to change your mind any less."

"Oh, it's not." Letting go of her hands, he gestures with his chin back to where camp waits. "I just didn't want you to think it was easy to say no."

He tucks her hand into the crook of his arm before leading her back to camp, not releasing it until they're back in front of the fire, in spite of a few scattered raised eyebrows. The details when it comes to the inner workings of the council might still be theirs to keep, but the enmity between councillors Kane and Griffin was far from secret. Surely Marcus can feel the weight of those speculative eyes as well as she can, but he only sits next to her, outer thigh against hers so they share heat and form a circuit with the fire, warmth to warmth to warmth.

"I never did tell you what it was on my tray this morning, did I?"

"...No?" He pauses, nonplussed. "Why?"

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand." He desperately want to know more, and Abby watches him make the conscious choice to ignore instinct and trust her enough to not question her reasons. It's a heartbreaking calculation, made all the more poignant by how young he looks with his palm out and open, blind because she'd asked him to be. Blinking back sudden tears, she pulls the foil square from her pocket and opens it, refolding the foil carefully and placing it back in her pocket after out of sheer habit.

"What's that—"

"Shhh." The square snaps in half neatly, and she drops one of the pieces in the middle of Marcus' open hand. "You can open your eyes after you eat that."

He huffs in mild exasperation at the extension of her demands but takes a cautious bite, eyes flying open as the taste hits his tongue. "Is that..."

"Chocolate? Mm-hmm."

"God, I haven't had chocolate in years." He takes another, more enthusiastic bite, fire turning the silver in his hair to strands of tinsel as she watches him enjoy another first.

"Neither have I." It tastes like she remembers—better, but everything is better right now. "I don't know where she found it."

"I'm sure someone found a way to redistribute Nygel's extensive collection of contraband." He sounds remarkably sanguine about it, and when Abby's eyebrows inch up he laughs quietly. "I think we're beyond worrying about it now, aren't we? Here we are, enjoying chocolate by a fire."

"On earth." Even saying the words can't quite make it feel real.

"And tomorrow, we go find your daughter."

 _We_. The word sinks into her skin, warming places the fire can't touch. Resting her head on his shoulder, Abby stares into the flames and sees Clarke's face in their rippling, ever-changing surface. "Tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE MADE IT that's a wrap for part one of this series, thank you to everyone who read and commented and messaged me, you're all amazing and I can't say enough how much fun this has been and how much all the kind words meant to me.
> 
> That said–part two will be coming soon! I've been asked this a couple times so some of you already know, but here's the official confirmation: I'm going to tackle season two, and then after that season three. Those will end up being even longer than this one and the holiday season is upon us so the update schedule will be slow at first, but chapter one at least will be ready before Christmas.
> 
> Until then, I can be found at [knowlesian](http://knowlesian.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where I'm currently taking requests and am always down to answer questions/do DVD-esque commentary for all the meta that couldn't make it into the story.
> 
> Again: thank you all so much for reading, and see you soon with S2!


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